State Of Origin 2025

Been 6 years since Lang Park hosted an opener which is just absurd but glad to see it finally.

 

If Slater picks Capewell or Gagai again he needs shooting. Cunt was trying to be way too clever last year. Playing Carrigan at lock for 70 odd minutes and using Cotter up front is also dogshit. Can see Gilbert on an edge again too and no Fifita which is silly.

 

If Tedesco could be trusted to not fuck up every shift in attacking position, (and wasnt so poor under contested bombs) you'd have to pick him at this stage. He's far and away been the best no.1 this year. Probably the best ball-running fullback I've seen.

 

You're off your head if you think Tedesco should've been picked last year. The less involved he's been in the last two series the better NSW have gone. Ridiculous comment frankly.

 

If, and its a big if, Trbojevic stays on the field with no further signs of injury, I could be persuaded to risk him one more time. At the end of the day, he is the best fullback in NSW when healthy.

Losing our most important forward in Tino, as well as Munster last year pretty much cost us the series, but even with them back I think we'll struggle. NSW have us beaten across the board. Even if Daley makes the mistake of not picking Moses, in favour of Luai, the cost of that is minor. Same with picking Young over Olakau'atu or Best over Latrell and so on. You really have to work hard to fuck up and pick a poor team. Needa hope he picks a few JakeT's.

That's not the case with Slater and Qld. He could easily ruin us with some left of field nonsense. What's Capewell averaging like 6 or 7 missed tackles a game? Him and Hammer on the left edge, with Nanai and Holmes/Gagai on the right, we might as well put literal turnstyles on our fringes.

 

I have him a step up from those two but he's no Jack Gibson thats for sure.

 

Jesus. He butchered two tries in game 1, 2023 and fell over for Hammer's try before getting outjumped by Collins. Pretty much lost them the game. Game 3 of that series they completely bypassed him on wide shifts and scored 3 tries in 15 minutes because he WASNT involved. Thats not correlation, it's directly causal. Edwards didnt do anything to fluff their shifts last year, was in much better club form and Tedesco's was mid. It was cut and dried, end of story.

 

Suit the narrative is a laugh when you're including games from AFTER Origin. Kinda weird.

And it's not ball-playing ability, it's the simple ability to recognise when to pass and when to run. He's a ball-hog. It's been a constant feature of his career and excusing it as coaching-error is asinine. How many times have we seen shifts get stifled as soon as he gets involved? The minute he was excluded, their backline worked flawlessly. So while I agree he is the better ball-running fullback, one of them can be trusted to just pass it on and the other cant.

I dont mind conceding Ponga should've been picked over Walsh especially for Game 3. I dont have a bias towards either of them. But everyone else could see Tedesco needed to be dropped and his comments around the time were very contrite, saying Edwards deserved to be picked. You're just coming off as a coping Chooks fanboy tbh.

 

I dont care that much about what he does with the backs. It's fairly predictable.

The pack is much more important. And the easiest way we negate the Blues advantage in the forwards is by picking players with offloading ability. A pack containing Tino, Carrigan, Hopgood and Fifita is brimming with second-phase. If Slater simply prioritises mobility again we're fucked.