New South Wales Blues head coach Laurie Daley has revealed the reasons Hudson Young and Connor Watson weren't used until midway through the second half on Wednesday evening during a losing effort in the State of Origin decider.
Despite looking out on their feet, the Blues had used just three of their interchanges 52 minutes into the game, with neither Young or Watson appearing on the field.
Reece Robson had looked in need of a rest for some time, while Young put in excellent performances in speeding up the Blues line and attack during the opening games of the series after being brought off the bench as an impact option.
Young, playing at the table-topping Canberra Raiders as a second-rower, had also been used through the edge, but excelled under the pressure of the Origin arena.
Both Watson and Young were finally brought into the game at the 52-minute mark, but by then, the Blues were still trailing 20-0 and facing an uphill mountain to climb against a Queensland side who didn't put a foot wrong all night, and, at that stage, had still not made a single error.
Daley said Young has been used in different roles across the series, while they were holding Watson off for a point where his side could get some ruck speed.
"It was one of those things. We have used Hudson differently both games, so we used him after halftime in Game 1, and before halftime in Game 2," Daley said during his post-match press conference.
"Connor we just felt like we started to get a bit of ruck speed there in the second half, we wanted to get some speed, so that's why we put him out there."
In the end, the duo couldn't make a difference to the outcome of the game, although they both played through to the end of the contest with the Blues only using six interchanges in a baffling move given how fatigued they appeared to be.
