Eels Blogs

Attacking weapon: Jarryd Hayne of the Eels. Source: Getty Images

We can't play a conventional game and expect to win. Last year, we needed to play close to the perfect game to get the result in Sydney and, when we were a little down on that in the other two games, we couldn't get there.

You can't out-Queensland Queensland, particularly when it is basically an Australian team in Maroon jerseys. The trick for the Blues is to score points.

That's the main reason our halves combination, which drives your attack, has troubled me all year. Only one player has brought the sort of consistency you want to see in your players before heading into an Origin campaign, and that has been Peter Wallace in Brisbane.

So I have been thinking about it a lot. Around four weeks ago, I was talking to Trent Barrett about the form of some players, the possibilities with others, when he brought up the option of playing Jarryd Hayne at five-eighth.

It was something I raised last year and ultimately didn't go with, so it took only a gentle nudge to get me thinking that way again this season. I liked the idea.

A lot of people had their opinions on not only what I said last year about Jarryd being a five-eighth, but why. I didn't say it to embarrass him. I didn't say it because I had something against him and was looking to bring attention to him, as some alleged. I said it because I believed it. And I still do.

The shape and structure of where he plays best is a classic five-eighth and not that of a fullback.

He likes to get the ball at first receiver with options on his inside and outside. He likes to get the ball at second receiver, what we sometimes call the sweep shape, and with options around him he invariably hits the right one.

Jarryd plays the short side as well as Johnathan Thurston. And he gives us a big body to put in the defensive line.

Think about all that, and now put it in context of Origin.

At five-eighth, Hayne is a triple threat. He can run the ball, he can find support runners, and he has a massive kick. He creates a problem for the Queensland defence, and he is so hard to contain, partly because he can also be so unpredictable.

They can never be comfortable with him scouting around the ruck.

It reminded me a little of the story the Queenslanders like to tell about Brett Kenny handling Wally Lewis whenever he was picked at five-eighth for the Blues, and how they were never so happy as when the team was announced and the selectors, for reasons they didn't know, had picked Kenny in the centres.

I don't think Queensland would like to see Hayne at five-eighth.

The more I thought about it the more an option it became for me, but it had to be realistic.

So I went back to his games at five-eighth last year and watched them again and I also called up the stats from those games.

Ignoring his first two games at five-eighth, where he was getting himself settled, I compared his statistics against the five leading contenders for the halves positions this year in Origin and had that up my sleeve when I called him to discuss it on Thursday.

If Jarryd said to me he didn't see himself as a five-eighth, I was going to tell him, well, that meant that the other guys weren't either - as his stats compared favourably to all of them. But I didn't need to.

I know we all say in these circumstances that the player was excited - and he was - but what convinced me was not so much his agreement but his thinking behind why he wanted to do it.

Jarryd said he wanted the opportunity to lead a team. He wanted the chance to ball-play and create.

The way Jarryd spoke told me he had been thinking about this part of his game a lot and was just waiting for the chance to do something about it.

As he matures as a man, his game is maturing with him and, with that, he is craving extra responsibility.

He wants to lead. He wants the ball in his hand, and that's what you want from your ball-players. Peter Wallace was going to be named on the City bench until he was injured last week.

Mitchell Pearce, who I am a big fan of, will be picked at starting halfback with Hayne to play five-eighth for City against Country in Mudgee next Sunday, which underlined its value to us. Pearce, because he is the incumbent, gets the starting spot. But there's no denying Wallace's form until his ill-timed injury.

In Mudgee, we'll get the chance to have a good look at Jarryd in the five-eighth position and, from his point of view, he gives himself a run there before the NSW team is announced, if that is where he is eventually picked

It's not all over in that department, but Hayne is a serious chance now to play five-eighth - and not just after the injury to Wallace.

It's vital that we get our halves right for this series, because we need points.

Hayne has been the X-factor before in Origin from the wing, where he has won man of the match awards among some other top performances. Also at fullback.

Now he has the chance to be something else altogether.