Game 2 Origin match thread.

Well done NSW.

Nice to win for a change!

Great game. Phil Gould is ass paper. Night.

Right... so assuming Blues keep similar side for Game 3, but who do QLD blood? Ash Taylor for Hunt? Ofanhengue? Maybe a new hooker except Granville & Friend aren't on good form.

Could actually make Hunt a fantasy possibility if he's not playing Rnd 18. Ditto Macca.

Ponga lookalike

rhinoceroo wrote:Right... so assuming Blues keep similar side for Game 3, but who do QLD blood? Ash Taylor for Hunt? Ofanhengue? Maybe a new hooker except Granville & Friend aren't on good form.

Could actually make Hunt a fantasy possibility if he's not playing Rnd 18. Ditto Macca.

Even though Hunt just crumbles in big games when his side needs him and constantly comes up with shit last play options (or even third play) I think Kev will stick with him.

ponga needs to be on the field from the start imo

Lockyer: "what's the difference between this and club footy"
Ponga: "Not much"


Classic, the kid played massive but questions will be asked by some of the Qld greats whether he gets it. Or maybe they will pull him aside and explain it. If they do that, and he gets it, Qld will get back to their series winning ways sooner rather than later.

rhinoceroo wrote:Right... so assuming Blues keep similar side for Game 3, but who do QLD blood? Ash Taylor for Hunt? Ofanhengue? Maybe a new hooker except Granville & Friend aren't on good form.

Could actually make Hunt a fantasy possibility if he's not playing Rnd 18. Ditto Macca.

dunno why your mentioning hooker, McCullough did fine, no Cam Smith, but who is? the 15 minutes he hasn't played origin this year QLD got cut to ribbons in the middle of the park.

as i said in the fantasy thread, Hunt out - Taylor in, Chambers out - Gagai centre - Oates in, we were only a couple brain explosions from tying the series and those two are the biggest culprits

It is nice to finally get one when Qld have been so fantastic for so long. They are a champion team.

I honestly didn't think NSW could win this series with so little experience and so many debutants. Just a massive effort and one of the most out of the box results against a Qld team still with class and proven performers right across the park.

Long may Origin continue to be awesome, regardless of the result.

Ponga was amazing, the kid is a freak

NSW gutsy win in the last 10 minutes

Ben Hunt brain explosion kick on the 3rd tackle when NSW were under the pump

surmo13 wrote:

dunno why your mentioning hooker, McCullough did fine, no Cam Smith, but who is? the 15 minutes he hasn't played origin this year QLD got cut to ribbons in the middle of the park.

as i said in the fantasy thread, Hunt out - Taylor in, Chambers out - Gagai centre - Oates in, we were only a couple brain explosions from tying the series and those two are the biggest culprits

I just don't see Kevin getting the balls and dropping these two, even though they should.

NSW pulled a QLD this series. I thought QLD were the better team for most of both games, they just didnt have the finishing touch inside the 20, NSW had limited attacking opportunities but made them all count

surmo13 wrote:

dunno why your mentioning hooker, McCullough did fine, no Cam Smith, but who is? the 15 minutes he hasn't played origin this year QLD got cut to ribbons in the middle of the park.

as i said in the fantasy thread, Hunt out - Taylor in, Chambers out - Gagai centre - Oates in, we were only a couple brain explosions from tying the series and those two are the biggest culprits

Are you saying QLD is a one trick pony ? Without FAC they're FUCT ?

No Worries wrote:
Are you saying QLD is a one trick pony ? Without FAC they're FUCT ?

well that's an awful lot of putting words in my mouth... my point was that McCullough offers far more defensively than any other current option offers offensively and if i'm going to be honest, i think he outpointed Cook tonight from an individual performance standpoint.

i'll probably have to accept his name will get thrown up as a possible change until such time as an actual choice B comes along, the kind of player he is is only noted by his absence - case in point, this may be the most attacking team NSW has selected in a very long time, but out of 160 minutes so far, there was only 15 minutes of it where NSW looked like they could do whatever they damn well pleased with ball in hand - and Macca was sitting on the bench.

on a side-note, has a non-injury-related origin performance ever impacted premiership odds? because if there was any doubt before, it's become obvious that it would take a brave/stupid man to put Provan-Summons money on a team that allows Ben Hunt to make decisions with their season on the line.

Milchcow wrote:
2 out of 12 ain't bad

Love a good Meatloaf quote.

Game went pretty much the way I thought it would, same as game 1. QLD had the better territory, possession and looked the best team between their own tryline and the opposition 20. Just have no idea how to score points. The sweep play to Slater was great for 20min until NSW figured it out and then the well of ideas was dry. Even playing a man up they didnt look like scoring

Bringing Ponga when they did on was a terrible decision. Up 2 tries to 0, didnt need the extra backline player. Arrow should have been on then to shore up the middle.

NSW deserved the win and this isnt a go at "we waz robbed". But fuck me. Some consistency in reffing would be nice. Maloney throws a forward pass in game 1 but its not called because he "stays in front of the ball". Slater throws one game 2 and we pull it up, even though he stays in front of the ball aswell. Just shows how ridiculous that argument is in the first place... Maloney, Slater, the Broncos last week, all forward passes. Only 1 was actually pulled up - of course its the QLD one.

And a penalty try awarded to a player without the ball, not in the act of scoring a try? Spare me. Same offence at the other end? No penalty try. Should have been the same result, penalty and 10 in the bin, but you cant say that a bloke is definately, 100% going to score when he doesnt have the ball and neither he or the ball is over the line.

I fucking love Dugan because he's a big game player. He lifts under pressure and is always in the top 5 players on ground in finals or rep games. Hunt is the opposite. He is anti-clutch. Stamp his ticket never to play again. Dont drag some shit player along with the team like NSW did with Pearce just because he's good at club level. Some players have it - Hunt doesnt.

Looking forward to next year, how good is the Cleary v Ponga battle going to be for the next decade? Half bar just thinking about it.

I can understand the argument for and against the penalty try, on the grounds that perhaps the video ref couldn't be 100% certain that Cordner wouldnt have dropped it before grounding it, but the two incidents in that game were completely different in terms of the player who was taken out and their likelihood of getting to the Ball first. Cordner without question would have been first to the ball by some margin given the way it sat up like a peach and in the other instance, Trbojevic was clearly going to be first to the ball.

I agree with the inconsistency though, how in the world did Hunt not get sent to the bin? Does the awarding of the Try negate the professional foul? I don't think so, so NSW should have had their own 10 minutes against 12 men.

Also agree Qld were the better team for the most part for both games. I've always said, put Cam Smith in Blue and we win more series than we have lost the last 13 years. Well, if Smith plays the first two games this series for Qld, the series is over in Qlds favour for mine.

Cleary frustrated me for 70 minutes of that game. Didn't take the ball to the line once that I could recall. He just kept passing it out wide or doing a funny little turn in pass to a runner well before the line and on no occassion did it ask questions of the defense.

When we went down a man he came up with some big defensive efforts, and actually took the line on a couple of times, without much affect, but at least he asked the questions. He has to make some of those runs a LOT earlier in the game.

Cook was huge again I thought, ran when he needed to, kicked late in the game when he needed to, always looked dangerous even if Qld did do a better job of preventing his runs, but he is waaaaaaay sharper passing the ball, than FAC, who wasn't bad, but just looked a step of the pace all game for mine, if not solid defensively.