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Why the Pantherisation of NSW needs to stop
Story by Andrew Webster • 4h ago
There are many versions of
Brad Fittler. Silly Freddy. Reflective Freddy. Big-hearted Freddy. Pass-the-ball Freddy.
Then there’s Under-the-Pump Freddy - which inevitably surfaces at some stage during an Origin campaign, and never more so than after his side’s calamitous 26-18 loss to Queensland in Origin I at Adelaide Oval on Wednesday night.
Coaches wear too much of the blame when their side loses, and are lavished with too much credit when they win, but this loss must reside squarely on Fittler’s shoulders.
This was a tightly wrapped burrito of misguided selections, superstar players desperately out of form, and a brand of Pantherised football that Queensland’s superior defence had little trouble reading.
The Blues can no longer ignore what the rest of us can see; that up against the coaching team of
Billy Slater,
Cameron Smith, and
Johnathan Thurston, they are being out-thought, out-strategised, out-played.
They terrorised NSW as players, now they are doing it as coaches. It’s like being chased by Terminator: it never ends.
Fittler knew he’d cop it if his whacky selections didn’t work out, so he can’t say he didn’t see it coming. He took a wild chance on rookie firebrands
Tevita Pangai jnr and
Hudson Young and got his fingers burnt. Whatever “aggression” the pair brought was negated by penalties and handling errors. Both made dumb plays that led to
Selwyn Cobbo tries.
Conversely, Slater’s selection gambles turned into selection masterstrokes. Fullback
Reece Walsh’s big green eyes didn’t blink at any stage while centre
Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow carried his club form into the Origin arena.
Unfortunately for NSW, so did many of their players.
Tom Trbojevic was tentative at best.
Josh Addo-Carr looked like a player still finding his way back from injury, probably because he is.
But the player of most concern was captain and fullback
James Tedesco, who is no longer the rock to which NSW can cling in times of need.
In this match, he was caught out of position, slipped off tackles and then faced the ignominy of being out-leaped by Maroons prop and Roosters teammate
Lindsay Collins for the final try to
Cameron Munster.
When Tedesco had the ball, he gobbled up plenty of metres like he always does with his quick leg-speed and vision, but he overplayed his hand.
His numbers look good on a stat sheet but the way he’s playing kills the attack, a little like
Paul Gallen when he took it upon himself, as NSW captain, to touch the ball two or three times a set.
What mostly sabotaged the Blues’ ability to score points was their intricate, disjointed plays that fizzled out time and again.
Fittler has been criticised for the Pantherisation of the NSW team but, as long as the Blues were winning, the preference to pick players from the NRL’s most dominant team of the last three years made perfect sense.
Now it’s starting to feel like misguided loyalty and stubbornness in the face of unfounded accusations that Fittler and his adviser,
Greg Alexander, favour their old team.
The Blues have lost three of their last four Origin matches running the same Panthers plays, on both the left and right side of the ruck. Queensland defenders pick them off like they’re shooting fish in a barrel. Clearly, they have adopted the rushing defensive strategy used by Melbourne in the 2020 decider against Penrith — because it works.
They did in last year’s series and did something similar in Adelaide. How did the Blues not see it coming?
Onwards, now, to Brisneyland for game two at Suncorp Stadium on June 21. It already feels like a funeral.
Fittler faces the trickiest of dilemmas: let the players who cornered themselves into this position find their way out of it — or perform emergency surgery on his squad?
Latrell Mitchell, who’s had a problematic relationship with NSW since being dropped for game two in 2019, looms as an obvious saviour.
His Souths teammate,
Campbell Graham, was brought into the squad for game one but then told he could go home when medical staff learned he required painkilling injections on his sternum just to train.
But he’s been named to play against the Gold Coast on Saturday and should be considered for NSW ahead of Trbojevic, who has been stood down for 11 days because of concussion suffered late in the match.
The biggest call, however, needs to be made in the halves.
Halfback
Nathan Cleary isn’t going anywhere, and five-eighth
Jarome Luai did little wrong, but for the sake of variety, of salvaging the series, how about something different?
NSW went very close to picking
Cody Walker for game one, not just because of his form for Souths but the way he pinballs around Mitchell, confusing everyone except themselves.
Perhaps it’s time to pull the trigger on Luai and try something different. If not Walker at five-eighth, then start
Nicho Hynes and use Walker off the bench against tired defence?
For years, Blues coaches complained about never having the depth in the halves enjoyed by Queensland. Fittler is the first NSW coach in 15 years or more to have myriad options so he should explore them.
I mean, what else does he have to lose, apart from the series and, possibly, his job? We’d rather a Winning Freddy than a Sacked Freddy.
