Queensland coach Billy Slater has swung the axe.
Daly Cherry-Evans – Gone.
Beau Fermor – Gone.
And that's it.
Despite scoring one try in two games, and facing a second series loss in succession, and a fifth in eight years, apparently the only personnel change the once proud Maroons needed to make are those two unlucky souls.
One was a debutant. Beau Fermor, a 26-year-old approaching his athletic peak and approaching perfect age for those who ply their age in the engine room. A player who may weeks ago have reflected the future of the State, is now hastily removed and could well be linked to a dark past, instead.
The other, the captain. The halfback. A twenty-six game Origin ornament.
When the footy thought-leaders in Australia's sunshine state retired into their thought bubbles after last year's series defeat, they re-emerged to tell the world that Daly Cherry-Evans was still the on-field general. Not just by virtue of the number seven jersey on his back, but he still had the captains arm band, too.
When the coach wanted to gauge the mood of the players, illicit a desired performance outcome out of them, or be the spokesperson for the troops, it was DCE who was deemed to be the standout candidate when the squads for Origin 1 were announced on 19th May.
Origin Three of 2024 was played on 17th July. A week and a bit short of ten months of reflection, plotting, researching, analysing and discussion went into the first game of 2025.
By 9th June of the new campaign – exactly three weeks after that Suncorp opener – that strategy was scrapped.
It didn't seem to matter that the Maroons forwards seemed to be dominated by their inter-state adversary, both with ball in hand and without.
Nor did the coaching staff seem to be concerned about the defensive frailties of Reuben Cotter and Jermiah Nanai, as outlined in last weeks defensive analysis which you can find here.
It is very reasonable then to wonder what the heck the Queensland strategy actually is.
Last week, I defined their defensive ruck control strategy as ‘catch and control' – or more brutally as, three people dressed in Maroon laying a delicate (yet very heavy) baby dressed in blue, to lie down on a grass bed, repeatedly.
This week, I categorise their attack as ‘going into a fist-fight by spending far more time dancing around, avoiding their opponent, than jabbing and punching'.
The dancing around is their early shifts of the footy which we all witnessed from early in the game.
With little desire to take on the Blues in midfield, they attempted to move them around the field to make inroads on their edges, and to tire them out, instead.
They may as well have said to New South Wales “we can't beat you physically, so we will beat you with football”.
The problem was, however, they did the football thing in such a misguided way, it had little or no impact on the Blues, who dealt very easily with everything thrown at them, and have done in the last two Origins.
Let me outline why, both here, and in the video I have prepared for you here:
There's a very simple doctrine in rugby league that will survive any change to the rules.
You must go forward before you go sideways.
Queensland did this awfully. Their mindset wasn't on beating New South Wales physically, it was on getting away from them.
From the earliest sets of the game, they would take two, sometimes three basic hit-ups in their attacking set, before shifting the ball, regardless of where they were territorially on the field.
The problem was, they were directing their hit-ups in the same direction as they intended to shift the ball only a play later, on so many occasions.
They were moving the Blue defensive wall gradually towards the direction they were intending to overrun them. They were preparing the Cockroaches for the onslaught that was coming.
Using boxing parlance, imagine jabbing your opponent in the face with your left hand a few times. What would your opponent do? You'd hope they'd get the gloves up and cover their head wouldn't you?
Would you then try and land a strong blow to the head? Or would you go towards the body where there is no form of defence instead?
The Maroons were still punching to the head. And repeatedly.
New South Wales could have defended like this all day. And indeed they have for 2x of the last 80 minutes of football. It was and is so easy to read.
Because the Queenslanders didn't focus on getting the opponents' defence going backwards very much, the Blues pack were easily controlling the ruck, which allowed their defence to retreat the required ten-metres and arrange their defensive alignment very comfortably for long periods.
Not only that, there were numerous occasions in game one where Queensland DID manage to create an exploitable overlap, yet bombed it.
When there was a dent in the Blue wall, they, just like their ultimately vanquished opponents, did have very exploitable gaps and other problems in that defensive line.
There just wasn't enough dents put in that defence, and there was some very poor decision making from the key Queensland on-field decision makers.
Cameron Munster, faced with two and three player overlaps, was guilty of hitting a player close by, when he should have pushed the ball a few metres wider, on several occasions.
Pat Carrigan gave what are known the trade as ‘hospital passes' a few times, too. Munster and his Storm teammate, Harry Grant were seen lifting their arms as if to ask ‘what's happening next?' in the direction of their half-back once or twice.
This is where we bring Daly Cherry-Evans into the conversation.
I have coached football at very high levels for a long time and I know a halfback who is lost for ideas when I see one.
DCE – a veteran of Origin and a player still in NRL demand – was seen numerous times, stood still, waiting for something else to happen.
He genuinely looked confused.
The question here is, why?
Billy Slater couldn't sack himself, so he has sacked his halfback instead.
But it was the ten-game coach that got it all wrong. DCE knows what to do. Munster knows what to do. Grant knows what to do. For them all to be confused as to what the intended direction was, means all eyes would have turned to the coaching box.
To win in Perth, Queensland have got to get that defence going backwards before they go sideways.
It's called ‘ruck-recognition'.
If they are going to try and ‘play-around' the Blues, they've got to get a fast play the ball before they shift the ball sideways. And they will get fast play-the-balls if they send one or two players directly into the line on the first two plays.
Instead of taking too many misguided hit-ups into the line like they did in Brisbane, they've got to tie the defence up on one side of the field, before shifting to the other. Then their pivots have got to make the right decisions on the back of that.
Do that, and based on the evidence I saw on game one, they must shift the ball at the moment they see the quick ruck.
Whether it comes on tackle one, two, three or four. And they need to be patient with that, and put completion and ‘building pressure' very high on the list of essential outcomes.
If they persist and stay patient, there is a chance their opponents will tire, just like they did at Suncorp.
On a few occasions when a Queenslander carried the ball with force directly into that Blue wall, it had exactly the same impact as when it happened vice-versa.
The difference is, New South Wales did that constantly and repeatedly. And it ultimately paid dividends. It's no coincidence that their tries in the first half came towards the end of it, after repeated and relentless go-forward pressure had taken its toll.
Queensland went sideways when they should have gone forward, and forward when they should have gone sideways.
And that comes back to the coaching instructions.
If players are given too much structure and ‘pre-programmed' plays, that either works or it doesn't. The coach didn't back his team to get the opposition defence going backwards.
He gave them a structure that didn't work as it should.
Lee Addison is a former club coach at the Sea Eagles and Panthers, and the founder of rugbyleaguecoach.com.au. His recently published book ‘Rugby League Coach' is available now on Amazon and www.rugbyleaguecoach.com.au
