nother season of State of Origin Rugby League is about to begin, and it’s good to see the selectors are living in their own private realities as always. My brother always says that the team with the worst selectors is always the losing team, but this year either of them could stake that claim.
NSW:
Brett Stewart, Jarryd Hayne, Mark Gasnier, Matt Cooper, Anthony Quinn, Greg Bird, Peter Wallace, Brett White, Danny Buderus (capt), Ben Cross, Ryan Hoffman, Willie Mason, Paul Gallen. Interchange: Anthony Laffranchi, Anthony Tupou, Craig Fitzgibbon, Ben Hornby.
Right there you can see for NSW that somehow three St George players are picked despite their team being rubbish (Gasnier, Cooper, Hornby), while a guy like Nathan Hindmarsh can’t get in, and it’s because his team is going poorly … On the other hand, Peter Wallace, while a no. 2 selection because of Kurt Gidley’s injury, is probably a good pic. Interesting they ignored Anasta, but will have to see where the kicking game goes there. Wonder what Brent Kite thinks of being dumped here after plahing a test last week? And good to see Laffranchi selected finally, and Fitzgibbon probably isn’t a bad idea — he should probably start as he must be the best goal kicker in the team.
Qld:
Billy Slater, Brent Tate, Greg Inglis, Justin Hodges, Israel Folau, Karmichael Hunt, Johnathan Thurston, Carl Webb, Cameron Smith (c), Petero Civoniceva, Michael Crocker, Sam Thaiday, Dallas Johnson. Interchange: PJ Marsh, Ben Hannant, Nate Myles, Jacob Lillyman.
We need to check right now and see if there’s anyway Scott Prince can switch to NSW, because that appears to be the only chace he’s got now. They go and pick Karmichael Hunt at 5/8, deespite his never having played there in his life. While Prince is mainly a half, of course he could play 5/8, but what chance does the guy have now, beyond praying for injuries. Otherwise, that’s really quite a good team, with an especially strong forward pack.
Hahaha … you have not seen the depths of my Rugby League obsession people 🙂 State of Origin has quickly become the near premiere version of the competition, so I should post about this more often. At the moment I”d have to say Queensland are the favourites, though it could go either way depending on some of the new combinations.