Qld spots build on Mustangs’ big year
Walters pulls selection shock
A good year has got even better for Brock Diment, Cory Paix and Travis Turnbull.
The Western Mustangs were selected in the Queensland under 18 team to face New South Wales in the State of Origin curtain-raiser at ANZ Stadium next Wednesday.
It is the latest success for the trio after they helped the Mustangs take out the Mal Meninga Cup.
Turnbull has been selected at fullback for Queensland after playing in the halves for the Mustangs.
Paix has been picked to start at five-eighth following his great Mal Meninga Cup season, when he finished as the competition’s leading point scorer. He and Diment have also been selected in the Queensland Schoolboys team.
Diment is on a five-man bench but the make-up of the final team isn’t expected to be decided upon until after the squad has a training camp at the Gold Coast from Friday until Tuesday.
Selection came as a welcome surprise for Diment.
“I was feeling pretty shocked to be honest,” he said.
It will be a proud moment running out in the Queensland jersey.
“It’s a real honour and privilege to put on the Queensland jersey,” Diment said.
TIM Glasby has a whitebread name and a whitebread approach to his footy. He is the great surprise in the Queensland team. He should be the great threat.
Glasby plays out of Melbourne, where the education is thorough.
If the theory that NSW had too much leg speed through the middle in Game I is even partially true, and it is, then Glasby arrives as the antidote.
Glasby prides himself on detail. He just gets it right, all the time, and this approach take him a long way towards tidying up the middle for Queensland so Andrew Fifita and Aaron Woods and David Klemmer can no longer roam free, like buffalo on the Serengeti.
Glasby is not big but he has a high workrate and a good bump and fall forward, which gives him a quick play-the-ball.
Cameron Smith loves playing with him. And behind Smith comes Cronk and now Thurston.
The Blues’ easy ride lasted one game. Finally, in the face of common sense, age gives way for Queensland.
I don’t see the Queensland changes as panic.
Coach Kevin Walters was restricted to doing things the Queensland way first time around. Weight of public opinion got him, and they write their own mythology in Queensland.
It meant Walters had to pick the incumbents no matter how much form and instinct told him that there were too many players too old and too out of form to beat even a half decent NSW team.
They built the dynasty, went the narrative, and they deserved the right to defend it.
So Walters went with Nate Myles, the old warhorse, and Aidan Guerra and Jacob Lillyman and Sam Thaiday who, between them, claim 83 Origin games.
That has all come to an end. Walters’ seven changes deliver him the team he should have picked first time around. And so with it, everything suddenly changes for NSW.
Fifita’s easy metres through the middle got a little harder. Woods’ delightful first game now requires a little grit.
In hindsight, the Blues were gifted the first game. No Thurston, Billy Slater, and enough out of form warriors in the pack they couldn’t manage to lift each other.
Alongside the unorthodox choice of Glasby is everyone’s pick, Coen Hess.
Gavin Cooper attaches himself to Thurston’s left hip, a constant threat.
Valentine Holmes comes in at right wing. Boyd moves to left wing and Billy Slater is back at fullback.
As simple as that.