Laurie Daley’s position as coach may now be under threat because his State of Origin coaching record is ten games and only four wins and six losses since taking over as coach of the NSW team from Ricky Stuart in 2013.
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“If what happened last night in State of Origin football took place in the AFL then coaches would be fined or could even be suspended for bringing the game into disrepute”, Bartlett said.
“He told a press conference that he would ask that last night’s referees be stood down and not be in charge of game two”.
Blues players were upset when Josh Morris was denied a 66th minute try when the bunker overturned the onfield decision.
But also at issue for Daley was the slow speed of the ruck and NSW’s perception that the Maroons superstars, especially Cameron Smith, get away with repeated indiscretions.
Maloney spoke after the game of his frustration.
Despite having won seven of the past eight matches at Suncorp, Smith said it would be foolish to think that home ground advantage would get his side over the line in three weeks’ time. We needed a bit of a spark so we got Dylan on. What he and the other NSW forwards did not know was how much game time they would get, while Walker was only told that he was unlikely to be used until late in the game unless there was an injury.
“You can’t do it by yourself”. You do need a bit of assistance and a bit of luck, that was the case for Queensland tonight. “All the 50-50 calls went Queensland’s way”.
“It is nice to be 1-0 up but going back to Brisbane is not going to help us win the match”.
“There were some really encouraging signs for us because we are a young team, we have a lot of new blokes”, he said.
“It doesn’t matter whether we’ve got 50,000 Queenslanders there, it’s not going to make the Blues play any worse”. “Obviously the more it came up on the screen and the more looks we had, you could see a stage there where you couldn’t see the ball at all and I thought that would work in my favour but obviously it hasn’t”.
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“All is not lost”.
