2013 State of Origin

Shrewd observation. Didn't think of that. Be interesting to see how it plays out if in fact Merritt and Morris have a few tries scored on them by Inglis/Boyd. It's a distinct possibility given that Hayne is held up as a brilliant rep winger, despite being woeful in 50% of his job. Mind you, I think if NSW lose, the chorus for Hayne to come back in at fullback will be reasonably strong.

 

Yeah. And fullback is, as I've long thought and written, one of if not the easiest position in which to look good. As you said, he could do a couple of brilliant things that don't actually add much to NSW's performance, and be considered to have played well. That Hayne will return is not in doubt. He'll be there somewhere come Game III, but it might be a bit easier and palatable to simply drop Merritt than to drop the new golden boy and media darling.

 

Injury to an outside back will absolutely throw things into disarray. If any of the three quarters, Merritt, Morris, Jennings or J.Morris get hurt between now and Game III, the temptation to simply slot Hayne in, even at centre, may be too strong for Daley to avoid.

 

Not sure? there's no chance of him being picked anyway. If Dugan is to be replaced it would only be by Hayne. As much as I would dearly love to see it, Stewart would never be picked on the wing.

 

Even when they did have room to kick I thought they kicked far too often to Ferguson who looked comfortable under bombs and made some good kick returns. When Cronk started kicking to the other side they forced a few mistakes.

 

Yeah. Regardless of our lack of time and space, the kicking game was terrible on it's own merits. Smith didn't kick anywhere near enough in the first half. Thurston didn't kick at all. And Cronk's lacked direction and distance.

 

or even just kicked low to Ferguson and test him with a bouncing ball rather than bombing him. Very few halves seem to take the option of a grubber kick these days unless they are putting it in-goal - Cherry-Evans is one of the few exceptions.

 

Talking about long range kicking.