Minichiello was very solid. I didn't think Uate or Hopoate did anything to warrant a rating of "outstanding." Inglis was better than either of them and I don't think he played "outstanding."
AWTA. And Lockyer should've stopped going to him after the 15th time of it not working. But he didn't. He kept throwing him the ball even when in poor position.
It's hard to pass to Nielsen when he's playing incredibly flat. In line with Thaiday. He just has no attacking sense.
Harrison and Thaiday were both terrible IMO. Their ball playing was atrocious. Thaiday taking 16 fucking runs and only making 77m is disgraceful. Less than 5m per run. I really don't think it could be any more evident that QLD need Dallas Johnson back in the side. Smith was working his arse off out there in defence and was clearly too fatigued to do as much in attack. Harrison was much the same. His ball playing and creativity on the left was virtually non-existent. Positive thing for us is, I don't actually think NSW can play much better. NSW's completion rate was insane and their scramble defence was excellent. We made twice as many errors, and yet we still made more line breaks and produced more offloads. With 10 to go the game was still very much there to win. A perfect opportunity down their end to win the series and we looked like an u7's team in attack. Everything was so ridiculously flat, poorly executed and lacking purpose.
I've watched the replay and I see virtually zero evidence for this claim. There were countless opportunities for Lockyer to pass to Nielsen who was exactly where he should've been and Lockyer chose to use (over-use) Thaiday all night.
Without knowing exactly when you're talking about I'll assume you're talking about when he uses his feet to "trap" the rolling/bouncing ball to make a safer pick up. Definitely would be difficult but if you're going to drop either Parker or Taylor it would have to be Taylor for mine.
If QLD doesn't want to do many changes (which I how I think it should be, we don't want to be like NSW), I'd put Thaiday on the bench and tell him that he's a dumb fuck, move Parker to lock and Harrison to left 2nd row. Parker can play 80 mins and do a lot of work in defence, and Harrison can just concentrate on the left like he has in 08/09.
Personally I'd drop both Parker and Taylor even though they really don't deserve it. Has to be done though IMO. Middle third defence is just too much for Smith to do by himself. Not picking our best defender is insane. 1.Slater 2.Boyd 3.Inglis 4.Hodges 5.Nielsen 6.Lockyer (c) 7.Thurston 8.Scott 9.Smith 10.Civoniceva 11.Harrison 12.Thaiday 13.Johnson 14.Cronk 15.Hannant 16.Shillington 17.Myles Personnel has nothing to do with our right side not moving up. It's a tactical error and Meninga and his staff need to wake the fuck up to it. No point having a straight line if it doesn't move up.
Huge risk to play Parker for 80 minutes in Origin. Johnson has proven to be our best lock since Carroll so why not play him?
The attacking problem is just a form slump IMO. Over the course of 5 years a few bad performances, even two in a row are going to happen.