I'm not here to bag the coach or players, however I believe last night's origin loss was on Freddy. Yes I get the players need to take responsibility for and Thier ball control and it cost us badly. But I believe Freddy made a couple of errors.
Don't get me wrong, I like Freddy as a coach and he has done well the last couple of years, but I think he got the team selection wrong
I thought the starting side was ok but the bench was wrong. Firstly Walker doesn't offer much for a 14. I'm not even sure where he played when he came on. I thought it was a waste of a sub. Qld had a big pack and bench and we went in too light. I believe we should have gone with 4 forwards on the bench. RCG should have started and Paulo come off the bench. We had no impact players off the bench and with Murray getting injured after only 3min on the field it left us with 2 replacement forwards. After only 30% position in the first 20 it was always going to be hard in the second half. We have plenty of utility players throughout the team to cover positions. We needed a bigger body coming off the bench. Nothing against Walker. He played ok. But it was a waste and we got dominated in the middle
Secondly Freddy said in the half time interview he told the players to run closer to the ruck to limit errors. I believe this was the wrong way to go. We got picked off by markers and they got up in our face and smashed us as we ran one out and were easy targets. We kept doing this for 30min with no success and it got us no field position. That allowed them to get on top and once we were down by 8 we had to start throwing the ball around to score points. This is where we started to get field position and got some points.
Yes the players need to be better and I believe they will be in game 2. But Freddy has to get the team selection right first. RCG to start. Paulo off the bench. Brown or Yeo in for murray. Let's hope wighton is ok as I think he will come back and dominate Gagai.
Replies
Agree and the selection of the blues players and putting them out of their preferred position was really dumb. I dont think Gutherson is an Origin player at least in the centres.
He would be best suited as a 14. He is a great support player, not a tackle buster
Garbage, QLD did it for years with the likes of GI, Darius Boyd, Cooper Cronk. Gus did it with Joey playing him at dummy half.
Gutho is a perfectly capable centre, and Jack Wighton spent most of his career in the centres. They weren't the reason we lost.
At Origin time you pick your best players and fit them in however you can. Hell, QLD had an edge forward at left centre.
Not according to Gus. But you know better hey Brett. Gutherson shouldnt be in the blues side unless at number 1. Anywhere else is a liability.
Well then Gus has got a short memory then. QLD played guys out of position and won the game. Gutho was fantastic last night, he missed one tackle. He wasn't a liability.
LOL - Gus has been on the Maroons band wagon for years - he is a very biased and self opinionated egotist and truly thinks he does not shit like normal people.
IMO he probaly only shits when commentating and it all comes out the top hole. Got a face worse than Poppa's A^#@*#e. (There's a lead in for someone, surely)
Good points brissy - he raveved on about playing people "out of position" (Gutho in centres) but said nothing about Wighton not playing centre for club games.
Don't get me wrong Brett. I didn't say they were the reason we lost. I just think for the blues to be at Thier strongest, Gutho would be a great 14. I thought he played well
GI debuted for QLD on the wing even though he played centre ....
Anyway, Gutho was fine
I disagree re Paulo, he is a starter all the way. He was the difference between the two teams when he was on the field. Really disappointed that he only got 14 minutes in the second half. Cody Walker basically got his minutes.
RCG has to come in for Murray, Freddie needs to get on the blower to Wade Graham and get him into camp yesterday. Cannot believe he's not in the 27 man squad.
I'd move Gutho to left centre, bring in Lomax at right centre, move Wighton to left half / 5/8 and move Luke Keary to right half/ halfback.
For mine our 1-17 were fine (although Cleary is way overhyped). I think the Gutho, Wighton out of position stuff is being exaggerated. What we lacked was go forward. It's that simple.
Saifiti and Paulo did a great job starting. We ran through the middle creating a lot of go forward and Cook and Tedesco played off that, created plenty of havoc and it was 10-0. Once our starting props went off we were a different team.
If Saifiti and Paulo were replaced by Klemmer and RCG we would have been fine. NSW is best going through the middle via our Props and Cook etc playing off that.
This NSW side has about 27 playmakers in the starting 13. WTF did we carry another playmaker on the bench? Arrogance! That's the only reason. Our boys went into that game expecting a points bonanza and got taught a very big lesson in Origin football. Hopefully Freddy and selectors learn from that.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next