NSW Team for origin 1

Owey said:
Absolutely, his main earn is from the tournaments, but YouTube and live streaming kicks in a bit as well. Different times!!
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Isn’t it. Would have loved to make a living from gaming. Not it’s just my dirty little secret past time that’s just me time.
 
I've always enjoyed gaming, but I'm blown away that he can go in to a tournament with 50 to 60 people watching him live. Or post a video and have 1500 hits an hour later.
 
Queensland team for the sake of it:

1. Ponga
2. Coates
3. Hammer
4. Cobbo
5. Taulagi
6. Munster
7. DCE

13. Tino
12. Sua
11. Fermor
10. Carrigan
9. Grant
8. Horsburgh

14. Dearden
15. Fotuaika
16. Gilbert
17. Nanai

Wouldn't be ecstatic about the "all locks" starting middle but they don't have great options.
 
1. Edwards
2. To’o
3. Crichton
4. Mitchell
5. Lomax
6. Moses
7. Cleary
8. Barnett
9. Robson
10. Haas
11. Martin
12. Crichton
13. Yeo (C)

14. Watson
15. Leniu
16. Young
17. King

18. Graham
19. Utoikamanu
20. Olakau’atu

How Stefano and King get selected over May is beyond me. Papenhuyzen completely left out too. They must be high.
 
At bare minimum, without question these three players are ahead of Max King:

Keaon Koloamatangi
Jake Saifiti
Terrell May

Max King is way out of his depth in Origin. It's an arena for supreme athletes, not solid first graders with a big heart. That's why Jurbo looks like a plod at that level, and frankly, even Barnett is probably out of place. I get that Gould is influential but selecting Max King is ridiculous
 
May very unlucky. He’s having the 12 months breakout that Watson and Barnett had to be included imo. His 80 minute style probably isn’t what we need in origin, true, but I think he could easily adapt his game to shorter stint and higher impact. Think a few incumbents have probably got the nod purely because they were part of the win last year, and I can live with that.

I think the narrative story around Max King is the feel good type thing you get when you pick Jurbo (Laurie would be cheering he doesn’t have to be a villain and drop Jurbo). Agree with HarVeeGer, not that King doesn’t deserve it, he’s having a great year, but I think May would be more impactful. (When I first saw King, I thought Josh King had gotten the call up. Which again, would have probably been good reward for his club form).



May has probably done himself out of a blues jersey now with his comments. His Vlogging is bringing some heat to himself and teammates that they could probably do without.

First the filming of Luai and Hunt at the airport ignoring a fan (branded a signature hunter). I don’t think they really did anything wrong (Luai was video calling his family etc) but vlogging the incident brought attention to it and Luai has people lined up everywhere to take a dig.
Now with his comments about throwing a blues jersey in the bin, defecting to QLD and essentially leaking the news that he wasn’t selected. Again, poor guy is disappointed and chatting to his mate, but Vlogging the comments just invites the likes of Freddy and co to pile on.
 
It’s pretty clear at this point that the reason for the May snubbing & the Roosters getting rid of him is that he’s a ****head. He’ll probably never get picked.

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills seeing people questioning if Barnett’s physicality/athleticism is up to Origin level, we all watched last year right? He was right at home.

And you’re gonna feel very confident once you see the Queensland team… Billy has completely lost the plot. He’s Queensland’s Freddy and I hope he never comes near Knights HQ in any coaching capacity.
 
Queensland bench middles are Lindsay Collins & Trent Loiero btw… Max King is a better & more impactful athlete than both.

And they have Rob Toia marking Latrell Mitchell.
 
I would have found a spot for keaon koloamatangi, the guy just has great moments in games and this year he has been a work horse! I would also have started Young over Crichton just because Young makes no sense coming off the bench and he has had a significantly better year
 
Trent Loiero? Really? I think Billy and Laurie meet up for a cone or two before the selections.

Kurt Mann should feel hard done by getting over looked for that penalty magnet.
 
Billy is 100% Queensland’s Freddy. He’ll leave guys out for certain stated reasons - defensive concerns, effort concerns, discipline concerns - and then you’ll look at the rest of the roster and see even worse examples of those issues. So the real rationale is totally arbitrary, just patronage for guys he regards as HIS players.

If you were going to pin the result on any two Queensland players last year it’s Cotter & Nanai. The two clearly remain central to Billy’s heart & plans.

With the caveat that Queensland have a history of picking guys who on paper are nowhere near ready & nowhere near good enough, but then it miraculously works out for them: Toia is an insane selection. Insane.
 
Could age terribly but I honestly think Terrell is just a rather laid-back eccentric guy as opposed to someone with bad character (like his brothers).

I suspect traditionalist thinking within the RL hierarchy has blacklisted him for not fitting the bill of how a prop should present as a personality. I reckon Benji is probably the best coach for him in that respect given he has been very outspoken about doing things in a way that isn't necessarily traditional and allowing players to be themselves, hence why we've seen Terrell go to another level for the Tigers.

I can't complain too much about any of the other selections, King has been a good player for a while and is playing an integral role in the side coming first - I would prefer May every day of the week but it doesn't infuriate me like Jurbo would've. Stefano does not deserve to be next drop, if Haas is out we're in trouble there.

If Koloamatangi had played in the middle all year he would've been on the bench. I would've had him anyway because he can play middle/left edge/right edge to a rep standard. Hudson Young couldn't have done anymore to be picked so he was always going to land a spot, Crichton and Martin will do their jobs, all three can do time in the middle if required.
 
It's a strong middle rotation. Good mix of power running, physical defence and ball skills.

I think the world of Cameron Murray as a player but it may be a bit of a blessing in disguise for the Blues he's out because the need to fit both him & Yeo in has led to some weird shuffling of the deckchairs at times. Every player in the pack is a bit of a square peg for a square hole. The rotations should be very straightforward with Leniu spelling Haas, King for Barnett and Watson giving both Robson and Yeo a rest.

If you were going to nitpick you'd say Hudson is better as a starter and Liam Martin would provide more value than him as a bench impact player. But I think Martin's just been so good for so long now he's an auto selection regardless of form. And Angus was player of the series last year.

Maybe "****head" was a bit strong for May but yeah with these rep teams you want these blokes to come together and bond very quickly, it's not insane to worry about a guy who's a bit of an odd duck undermining what you're trying to do. King has been playing great footy, really physical going both ways. He's boring to be sure and likely benefiting from the same "I love the 80's" mindset that kept Jurbo in the team for so long... but he's actually really good, so whatever. And nothing eccentric about him.

I would have picked May, but I don't think it's one of these situations where he's been overlooked in favour of players who are way, way worse than him. We've seen far bigger outrages than this.
 
HarVeeGee13 said:
It's a strong middle rotation. Good mix of power running, physical defence and ball skills.

I think the world of Cameron Murray as a player but it may be a bit of a blessing in disguise for the Blues he's out because the need to fit both him & Yeo in has led to some weird shuffling of the deckchairs at times. Every player in the pack is a bit of a square peg for a square hole. The rotations should be very straightforward with Leniu spelling Haas, King for Barnett and Watson giving both Robson and Yeo a rest.

If you were going to nitpick you'd say Hudson is better as a starter and Liam Martin would provide more value than him as a bench impact player. But I think Martin's just been so good for so long now he's an auto selection regardless of form. And Angus was player of the series last year.

Maybe "****head" was a bit strong for May but yeah with these rep teams you want these blokes to come together and bond very quickly, it's not insane to worry about a guy who's a bit of an odd duck undermining what you're trying to do. King has been playing great footy, really physical going both ways. He's boring to be sure and likely benefiting from the same "I love the 80's" mindset that kept Jurbo in the team for so long... but he's actually really good, so whatever. And nothing eccentric about him.

I would have picked May, but I don't think it's one of these situations where he's been overlooked in favour of players who are way, way worse than him. We've seen far bigger outrages than this.
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Yeah reality is we're blessed with multiple good options in nearly every position, and pretty much everyone is in okay form or has too many runs on the board to be left out. Probably the most positive response to a Game I team in a long time.

Task now is to take the side and expose the genuine deficiencies in the QLD squad, of which there are many. A win against Billy is a win against the myth of QLD spirit, my soul was filled indescribable joy watching him capitulate in pressers last year and I yearn to see that again.
 
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