Incumbent Liam Martin is an Origin player, as is Cronulla’s Cameron McInnes, a 30-year-old whose only representative selection was NSW City in 2017. I admired his work rate in the Sharks win over Melbourne last Saturday. He holds the NRL record for tackles in a match, with 78, or 81, depending on who is counting. If a coach has a choice between a high-IQ player and a lesser one, take the brighter bulb. McInnes topped his school in three HSC subjects.
He’s versatile, playing both lock and hooker - and he’s tough, with a self-estimate of 300 stitches in his face. Origin is so fast, a coach needs players who can adapt to being caught out of position. Plus he’s a leader, a valuable ally for a Blues captain.
NSW coach Michael Maguire and Queensland’s Billy Slater.Credit: Getty
Maguire, as New Zealand coach, admits to taking inspiration from the Kiwis’ 30-0 win over the Kangaroos in last year’s Pacific Cup final in Hamilton. He chose usual five-eighth Kieran Foran as hooker, a position he had never previously played. Kiwi halfback Jahrome Hughes said Forans’s role as an extra ball player and leader was pivotal in their win. “He helped us get the feeling we couldn’t get beaten,” Hughes said.
Some of the game’s greatest coaches admit they “didn’t get Origin”. The Storm’s Craig Bellamy was beaten in three successive series, partly by his own club footballers in Queensland’s Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Billy Slater. But Bellamy redeemed himself with an Origin-style selection in his final match in Brisbane.
Jack Gibson was beaten in his first game in charge in 1989. One Sunday morning on Channel Seven’s Sportsworld, I highlighted for the audience the high work-rate qualities of an emerging St George player, Brad Mackay. Gibson phoned to ask the name of the self-sacrificial player and subsequently selected the 20-year-old. NSW lost the series 3-0 but Gibson won the following year with Mackay in the team.
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Origin series have been lost in both states through poor selections. Had the Storm’s Ryan Hinchcliffe been chosen for NSW, he would have become a perennial fixture. Clubmate Dale Finucane was chosen too late in a career where he was underrated and overlooked. An entire series can turn on one omission, such as Jake Trbojevic and Jack Wighton missing NSW selection in recent years.
When fullback Billy Slater was shunned for game one in 2017, it caused seismic waves in Queensland’s so-called rock solid unity.
Slater is now the Maroons coach and has won the past two series. However, the Maroons lost the final match last year. Asked why, Slater said lack of what he describes as “want”. Call it desire, motivation or passion but Maguire needs players who, as he says, “will put the blue jumper ahead of themselves.”
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