NSW State of Origin legend Andrew Johns has made a terrible call to Blue on the contrary comfort in three gamessaying that the players who killed the last stages of the opening game must be “disappointed” by the failure of all their efforts.
Between the 69th and 79th minutes of the first leg, the Blues had an extra man on the pitch for a reason. Maroons Front rower Thomas Flegler was sent to the sin bin.
The Maroons suffered another setback in the 73rd minute, losing striker Murray Taulagi to a head injury.
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After his best performance, manager Billy Slater had Ben Hunt playing at left-back and David Fifita at center right as the full-time whistle blew.
However, during the time when Flegler was banished to the penitentiary, Queensland fought back from two points to win 26-18.
NSW were also thwarted late in the game when Nicho Hynes was sent off at right-back after Tom Trbojevic left the field to be assessed for a head injury in the 69th minute, but Queensland faced major challenges late in the game. and he returned to win.
A night after watching the Blues beat the Maroons 24-10 to return to Queensland’s pursuit of whitewash, Johns complained about the opening game that failed on the 2GB Wide World of Sports radio.
“That game, the last 12 minutes, should haunt these players for the rest of their game,” said Johns, the Blues coach.
“The game was won… down to 12 men, the players are out of position, I think Ben Hunt was playing as a substitute at one point.
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“They lost the game and it’s one that hurts the players a lot.
“It would have been nice to win last night in front of a packed crowd and win the series, but no, so you have to learn from those mistakes.”
Johns looked into the Origin preparations in his interview with 2GB radio, revealing that he disagrees with what happened in rugby league in Adelaide, as well as accepting New Zealand as an option.
One of this year’s matches was held at the Adelaide Oval, two matches at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium and three matches at Sydney’s Accor Stadium.
Gal’s ‘what if’s’ of the Blues
“For me, you take our best asset, State of Origin, to a place where you can grow the game,” said rugby eight Immortal.
“Adelaide? Are we going to draft players from Adelaide? No chance in the world.
“Are we going to have more viewers, more people following the game from Adelaide? Maybe a few percent.
“If you want to take it somewhere, take it to New Zealand. We can grow the game there. The Warriors are doing great things there. If you can move… I think the only place” I’m looking to move would be New Zealand.
“But other than that, I’d be saving up for Sydney and Brisbane.”
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