Fittler to ponder NSW changes after dropping State of Origin game one
New South Wales coach Brad Fittler has to make some key changes to his side if he wants to keep State of Origin’s best-of-three-game series alive in Brisbane later this month.
After failing to put away a Queensland side reduced to 12 players (Tom Flegler sin bin for shoulder charge) and missing both wingers, Selwyn Cobbo and Murray Taulagi, for the last 10 minutes in game one in Adelaide on Wednesday night, Fittler surely has to make some difficult calls.
His game-one gambles on fiery forwards Tevita Pangai Junior and Hudson Young did not pay dividends with both players booked at various stages of the game for errors and disciplinary breaches.
Pangai Junior was taken off nine minutes into his second spell while Young played the opening 30 minutes but didn’t get back on the field.
They could pay the ultimate price for the loss while other changes must surely be considered before the next Blues squad is named on June 11.
Questions are already being posed about whether Penrith premiership-winning five-eighth Jerome Luai should be replaced by Cronulla’s Dally M Player-of-the-year, Nicho Hynes, who only got 12 minutes to influence the result.
Superstar, Latrell Mitchell, will come back into the team if his calf injury is healed and it’s already been suggested he could be shifted to fullback, with his Souths teammate, Campbell Graham coming into the centres.
However, to even think Fittler would drop the Australian captain from the NSW Origin side is too wild to contemplate.
Both Mitchell and even Penrith’s Dylan Edwards, who has been playing incredibly well for a long time now in the NRL, are viable options should he be brave enough to go down that road which seems extremely doubtful.
There is definitely a stronger argument following such a disappointing loss to start game two in Brisbane with Cam Murray and to recall livewire number 9 Damien Cook to dummy half, although Api Koroisau scored a try and was not the worst player in a beaten side by any means.
Even someone as creative and dangerous as South Sydney veteran Cody Walker has to come into the mix considering the way he has been playing and the fact he can put the best defence in the world into two minds.
Walker played his fourth and last Origin for NSW in 2020 but could even be playing better NRL football now.
But whatever Fittler and his co-selectors Greg Alexander and Andrew Johns decide it will be a herculean task to rescue the series.
Queensland is a 5-10 point better side when they play in front of a hostile maroon crowd at Suncorp Stadium, or as it used to be known, the Lang Park cauldron.
Of the 58 Origin games played at the Milton ground since 1980, Queensland has won 38.
Whatever changes the Blues make, if any, they have to write a new page in Origin’s bulging record books to win the series.
No NSW team in history has lost the first game and been able to go to Suncorp Stadium 1-0 down and secure the series.
Queensland has won 15 of the last 20 Origins played at Suncorp Stadium, although the last State of Origin game at the ground resulted in a 26-0 win for NSW when they clinched the series after winning the first game 50-6 in Townsville.
“Nothing’s impossible,” said Fittler when asked if Brisbane was now “mission impossible”.
“It’s obviously going to be very tough, but it is what it is. We need to regroup and be a lot better.
“We played well enough to get a lot of ball but we didn’t score enough tries, we let ourselves down but that’s the challenge ahead.
“We can’t avoid it; it is what it is.”
Asked about changes for game two in Brisbane.
“It’s a fair way away,” Fittler said.
“Realistically Turbo (Tom Trbojevic) has 11 days for an HIA and a few blokes came off injured so we will see what happens in a couple of weeks and we’ll go from there”
The two Queensland players, man-of-the-match, Reuben Cotter and Brisbane prop Flegler who were both reported, were fined a percentage of their match payment on Thursday and will not miss any club games.
Queensland is a $1.68 favourite to win game two with online bookmakers, with the Blues outsiders at $2.15 to square the ledger at 1-1.
