Freddie’s ‘sweet sixteen’
NSW are preparing to usher in a fresh and brave new era with 16 uncapped players jostling for NSW selection this series.
This is the new breed sending out a full-blown challenge to the Blues’ incumbents.
News Corp can reveal the Baby Blues queuing up for selection in Origin I at the MCG on June 6 – and they are all in sparkling form.
NSW coach Brad Fittler, assistant Danny Buderus and chief adviser Greg Alexander have discussed an extensive list of rookies. Those uncapped rookies gunning for the incumbents are Tom Trbojevic, Latrell Mitchell, Josh Addo-Carr, Mitch Moses, Cameron McInnes, Luke Keary, Jack de Belin, Tariq Sims, Ryan James, James Roberts, Reagan CampbellGillard, Paul Vaughan, Tyrone Peachey, Damien Cook, Nick Cotric and Euan Aitken.
“They are all challenging the incumbents. And we can only pick it on form,” Alexander said. “They have all been absolutely spoken about.”
It could be the biggest turnover of debutants for NSW since 1984 and 1989 – when 15 rookies first started for the Blues.
And there would be similarities to the 2006 Queensland side, which drafted in 10 debutants in the first year of their 12-series dynasty. We look at the stats from the Northern Pride’s win over Sunshine Coast Falcons THE GOOD Let’s take a moment to say: How good is James Clark going? After 41 tackles on debut, he put on another 27 on Saturday night, chalked up 117 metres gained and had 54 of those postcontact. A star in the making. Worrying about the talent of the Sunshine Coast should never have been a concern. In fact the Pride middle and bench dominated that aspect. The home side flogged the Falcons by 176m.
3Quick play the balls make all the difference and the trick is to execute them without dropping the thing. The Pride had three inside one second. A Formula 1 pit crew would appreciate that, if they knew what rugby league was. THE BAD There wasn’t a whole lot of bad but one thing to work on is not being lazy in the play the ball. Half the penalties given away were in the ruck.
3THE UGLY The overall completion rate figure really flatters the Pride, considering it was down at 53 at half time. To their credit they sorted that out second half and either way had more of the ball in the end.