SOOIII - it's French for that was a good game of league

After the first two State of Origins this year, I felt like a fuddy duddy. I felt old. Origins, you see, I said, Origins just ain’t what they used to be. Sure there’s intensity, sure they’re the best players, but… something’s missing. The emotion, the suspense, the awe. Heck, even for a regular season game, SOO1&2 just weren’t that good. Well, much like Michael Jackson until a few weeks ago, the child in me is back, and much like Michael Jackson until a few weeks ago, I feel alive. That was one helluva game!

Onto the thoughts, reflections and deep philosophical ponderances.

I really hate Brett White. And I’m a nswelshman! I hate him for at least two reasons. First, he beat up on Steve Price. Now I haven’t seen the replays so I don’t know if White knocked him out or if it was Waterhouse with the diving clothesline. Price was in there swinging too. But you don’t start a fight with Steve Price. I’m sorry, you just don’t. That’s like starting a fight with Hazem El Masri or Steve Menzies. Steve Price is one of the cleanest, most respected guys around, plus he’s old. And he used to captain the Dogs. White has a track record here too. I could have handled pretty much any other QLD player going off in a neck brace, but this just left a sour taste in my mouth.

Secondly, White cost NSW the Hayne try, thereby ruining what would have been a perfect finish to the game for NSW. Instead of seeing endless replays of Hayne - who else - skirting the touchline then powering through several defenders for the defining try to turn it into a thrashing, that whole thing becomes virtually erased in our memories. At least it lead to the angry bomb – more on that in a minute. White reminds me of the ignorant gland from the Blazing Entrails episode of Ren and Stimpy. It’s a big dumb galoot that Ren finds beating up on Stimpy’s brain, causing excess stupidity. I don’t have a picture to hand, more’s the pity, but if you come over to my place I can show you on dvd. Alright, that’s probably going a bit far.

There was some supreme attacking football in this game. Hayne and Inglis continue to stun. There’s something about games like this, the GF and GF qualifiers, and the rare club game, that bring out the best in the best players. Inglis is surely the best player in the game, I only wonder why he doesn’t dominate every game he plays. You can’t push Inglis back. No one else would have gotten back into the field of play when he did. So he's very strong, very fast and has an awesome fend. How many times did he tell the Wolfman not to argue with him?

In fact, as of SOO3, the fend is back. How many brutal fends were there in the game? Hayne absolutely smashed Michael Crocker, Boyd got Hayne a beauty at the end, Hayne and Inglis did it the whole game through, Watmough was doing it. A few years ago, I was truly excited about the SBW-lead resurgence of the shoulder charge as the pre-eminent display of power and poise at high velocity (speaking of which, how good was the Hodges almost try?) in rugby league. Now it’s the fend. We need a fends highlights package. Badly.

Generally speaking, I think the credit for the repeated line breaks and attacking raids during this game has to go to individual skill, will and power rather than team execution. It seems like the best recipe for a game like this is to unleash your best players and piss off the game plan, or at least your structured attack. It is a truism that you can’t build a good team, contend for a premiership, without a good 1,6,7 and 9. (Some people call this the spine, but you got a spine like that, you are one sick person. Since when do the halfback and five eighth stand behind the hooker anyway?) Unusually, the 1,6,7 and 9 for both teams were solid but none of them were dominant, or game changers. For NSW, this was a big improvement on games 1 and 2. Don’t get me wrong, there were some great performances there, but I don’t think any one would have a single one of those eight players down on their top three for the match.

Anthony Watmough was a line break machine. Did I see him run around Slater at one point? Someone did, only to get tackled by another player running back in cover defence. But to get past Slater, arguably the safest cover defender in league, was something else. Reminds me of that origin when Big Willie Mason burst through the line with only Slater to beat, and carried Slater for twenty metres, only to lose the ball over the line. Slater is persistent.

There were also some huge tackles, such as Price on Perry, and Tonga on I’m not sure who, early on. Kimmorley on Inglis was a good one too. But you can rely on big tackles in games like this – that wasn’t what made it stand out, though it helped. Speaking of Kimmorley, Brett, we get it – you can bomb. But usually a playmaker tries something different if a tactic fails the first five times. The crazy thing is, NSW could have had several more tries if they’d actually run the ball. Did you see their carries? Such power. Creagh scoring the winner was the epitome of this to me. And still, the bombs kept coming. The one time I would have liked to see a kick, it didn’t happen.

The most beautiful example of thinking on your feet and sizing up the moment came when QLD bombed with a minute and a half left on the clock, just so they could smash NSW in possession. Any club game, even most origin games, the team would have passed a thousand times, tried a dud chip kick and probably lost it into touch. What QLD did is about as Tao as rugby league gets. We need to see more of it. If only NSW had kicked ahead once they had the ball. They spread it, and looked as though they might have had a chance for a second before it was quickly snuffed. But if they’d put in a long kick, it would have been great to see Hayne and Jennings and Morris competing with Slater and Inglis and Boyd for a final piece of glory. Oh well. We got Ben Creagh running away from Justin Hodges instead.

Some more random thoughts
- Cameron Smith is the ultimate little tough guy. He’s like the skinny guy from predator who gets flattened with a falling log but insists he can make it. Except Cam Smith can make it. He takes a licking and keeps on ticking. I don’t know what it is, some people are just frigging tough like that.
- Darren Lockyer’s Angel is having a tough time getting to the next level. Yes he’s good, but he’s not quite that good. Dave Taylor played a better game against the Warriors than Sam Thaiday ever has.
- I can’t believe we still haven’t figured out pre-game entertainment. How bout a song that actually makes the people *feel* something? I dunno, You got the touch by Stan Bush? Surely one of these could work? The other thing we could do, seeing as how people are there to watch a rugby league game and all, would be to play some inspiring highlights. Individual player highlights, big match highlights – for SOO3 they could have just played the last two minutes of that origin game QLD won at the death in the 90s. That’d gee up the crowd, wouldn’t it? I want to see them frothing at the mouth. By the way, did anyone else find Grinspoon singing Champion before game 2 supremely ironic? Isn’t that whole song about what dickheads homeboys who wear the champion label are?
- Did anyone else think the referees allowed a lot of on the ground roughing up and holding down? I know they sometimes let things like this slide in origin, but usually just in the first frenetic spite-filled exchanges, then they start penalising. This was going on up until the last seconds. I gotta say, Barett’s non-reaction to a first minute face grind from JT shows he’s not stupid – well at least that wasn’t stupid, he still might be stupid.
- Bummed that I missed two tries in the first five minutes of the second half cause I was watching the Chaser. A try each in the first five minutes after halftime? That never happens!
- The shots of the NSW and QLD coaches boxes during the game were priceless. Big Mal was sitting there, eating popcorn and looking as glued to the screen as the rest of us at home, while Neil Henry was all stern and focused and presumably sending orders down to the players. Meanwhile in the NSW box Bellamy had the look of an angry man whose anger has become so all-encompassing that even when things go their way they still can’t celebrate or smile. The two raised hands of Joey Johns, and one raised hand (…) of Tooley Daley, were in stark contrast.
- Finally, I am once again left wondering how much better Origin could get if a few more people were let in. I refer of course to the practice of denying non-qld&nswelshman a piece of the Origin pie. Who wouldn't like to see a Tuiaki or Vatuvei come charging at the line? Or back in the day, a Utai or SBW busting through tackles? Or a Kidwell or Ropati knocking opposing forwards out? Or a Holdsworth or Te Maari flying the West Australian Flag? Who?!