Start the car; full steam ahead to Phillip Street, Sydney – the time has come. We have no option but to bulldoze NSWRL headquarters – preferably with Daley, McCarthy, Fulton and Gerard inside – before pushing the rubble into the sea and sowing salt into the ground so nothing will grow again for a thousand years. Then, and only then, will we able to select a team that vaguely represents our potential quality and stick to it for longer than twenty-five seconds. If we’re lucky. Some may say I’m being a little harsh. Well that may be the case, but after all, this is the sort of reaction we’re used to from those four knee-jerkers every time the Blues are outplayed by the opposition. They’re clearly being out-selected by the opposition as well judging by how often they admit to being wrong and change the team completely, so is a similar reaction not equally warranted?
Just in case something really strange happens though, like the selectors actually acquiring memories longer than their noses (and yes, I’m looking at you, Daley), we should probably leave a guide behind for the selectors of the future. We wouldn’t want to actually start winning games regularly again so it’s vitally important to pass on the knowledge acquired by the current bunch of over-paid idiots to those who finally emerge in 3009.
The first and most important thing to remember as a New South Wales selector is that a player’s ability to perform if picked in Origin I is completely decided by how he has played this year, in club football. What’s particularly important in this regard is how his team has gone – it’s obviously impossible for poorly performing teams to actually have good players. Anything that happened before this year, especially in past Origin games, is just a myth created by those evil Queenslanders to confuse us into picking players who have actually proven themselves over time or, worse still, played well at Origin level before. Sneaky little buggers, aren’t they?
Expanding on this theory, if you already have lots of players from one club in the team, it automatically makes any other players from that team Origin standard. Combinations are vital in Origin.
Now if Origin I is lost, which it almost certainly will be, it’s extremely important to react correctly to it. At no stage should a selector get complacent and think it’s even remotely possible for Queensland to simply have better players available than New South Wales – if we lose, it’s your fault for selecting a poor team for Game I and hence you must select a completely different team for Game II. There should only be two criteria for selection in Game II: the first being Game I performances (as everyone obviously plays exactly the same in Game II as they do in Game I, regardless of their overall ability) and the second being performances between Origin I and Origin II. That club teams are depleted, that incumbents are tired and that these games only represent a tiny percentage of a player’s career are facts that will be brought up – by Queenslanders – to trick us; do not fall into the trap!
Now if Origin I is won, it means that all the decisions you made that were criticized before the game were 100% spot on. The plan of action here is to read newspapers, blogs, internet forums and letters from before the game and conclude that if the masses were against something and you won the game, they were wrong. The players' performances in the game are in no way relevant. However, any decisions that weren’t criticized before the game should now be scrutinized in the selection room – you have to keep the fans and the opposition guessing.
Origin III selection is simple. Put the names of all the players that played in the first two games along with Braith Anasta into a hat, and draw out seventeen of them. Make sure you play a few players out of position, too.
