Archives, eh
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# Game One
I don’t have much to say on the game; unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it much, I was too distracted to sit down and focus on it. A lot of stress and self-doubt and low self-confidence roiling around in my head, I kept moving around, working on some code for work, trying to do some cramming about some technology. I can only clearly remember a few moments, so how about I talk about them.
I thought Jarryd Hayne went into touch in the eighth minute. I thought so at full speed, I thought so on the first replay and continued to think so throughout the constant review by the video referee. Granted, he was scoring against my team and I was always going to hope he had stood on the touch line. I think that I am objective enough to get beyond mere parochialism1, so I maintain that he went out, the video ref knew he had gone out, but was looking for anything in the tapes that would cast reasonable doubt and allow him to give a Benefit Of The Doubt try.
Perhaps Jarryd will learn for next time that it’s better not to have to put the referee in such a position. Someone said in the Sydney Morning Herald today that Hayne “Flirted with the left wing more than an old wharfie” (h/t Shaun C). One of the other moments I have a clear memory of is Greg Inglis’s try down the left wing. It was eerily similar to Hayne’s: he got outside his man and ran past, shaped to pass and then just ran right past the fullback to score. The difference was, he was well inside the touchline. It was an awesome run; if he’s been doing anything like that this year I have missed it, but it recalled for me just how fast this guy is. He’s a big guy but he doesn’t look it when he gets the ball and then when he puts on a burst of speed, he barely even looks like he’s exerting himself. Old macho writers last century uesed to wax lyrical about boxing and bull fighting and the like; Greg Inglis, in moments like that, evoke the same sense of awe.
Inglis also put a big fend on Jamie Lyons in the last play of the game and it was a thing of beauty. Jamie Lyons is hardly a small man but when the hand came out and shoved, he opened up like a door.
The last moment I remember – chronologically the second actually, but there was segue back there, so I segued – was Slater’s try. I remember it because it came in the play right after Hayne’s try was disallowed for stepping on the sideline and I initially thought that there was no way, he had to have put the ball down over the dead ball line. But he didn’t, he got it down well inside. It was crazy good, and it highlights the difference between the two teams. NSW had a comeback in the second half. For a long period they were making ground at will by exploiting tired defenders around the ruck; but despite that, the two tries they scored were jammy. Both tries were scored off kicks and both kicks were much too strong, they would never have been retrieved by the chasing player, except that both kicks deflected off a Queensland player. All props to them for being able to exploit good fortune and retrieve the ball to run in the two tries. They should, however, be careful in the wash up not to put too much emphasis on those tries. They should note how effective their up-the-middle running was and then go away and practice their kicking, because you can’t rely on deflections and falcons every game; their kicks were made to look good but they could just as easily have been highlighted as the major failings of the NSW attack.
On the flip-side though, they made ground at will running up the middle past tired ruck defenders. Dare I say it, but Petero and Price may be playing their last series. Like a stopped clock, eventually the NSW barbs about “Dad’s Army” will become true. Ben Hannant should be planning for his future as a starting Origin prop with an eye to next year.
1 I may have suggested in a chat room at the time though that Bill Harrigan is an anti-Queenslander cheat, but that remains unconfirmed and anyway, such is all just part of the spectacle. But he’s an anti-Queenslander cheat!!
