Wanted: NSW Origin team leaders. When: Now.
Brad Fittler has called for NSW players to start knocking the door down to be a leader in next year’s State of Origin team as the post-mortem continues into the Blues’ latest series failure.
Fittler on Sunday refused to comment on the possibility of taking over as coach should Laurie Daley step down or be given the axe.
Significantly, he didn’t rule it out.
“At the moment there’s no job and Laurie Daley is a really good mate of mine. I pay him all the respect,” Fittler said on Nine Network’s The Sunday Footy Show.
“Obviously there’s a decision either he’s making or the league’s making and until that happens, nothing will be said or considered.”
But that didn’t stop the the former NSW skipper from calling on the state’s NRL players to begin campaigning for next year as the search continues for players to end Queensland’s reign.
It came after Fittler and Blues legend Glenn Lazarus agreed with NSW’s most successful coach Phil Gould that the Blues badly lacked a strong player leadership group.
“Leadership’s a life commitment. You just can’t be a leader one day because Phil Gould or someone else says we need leaders,” Fittler said.
“When you look at the leaders in Queensland, they lead week in, week out. They play the same football week in, week out. They show each of the teammates they play with they’re desperate.
“Over this period, we’ve missed that. We haven’t got the players that are leaders inside out.
“The good thing is there’s an opportunity for any NSW player who wants to stand up, be a leader and work hard. There’s a position there for you.”
Former Blues prop Lazarus singled out prop Aaron Woods for a poor start to game three.
“The very first set of six, he’s backed into the defence. He does it a lot at club level, and gets away with it because the defence isn’t as intense or committed,” he said.
“So he gets offloads away and creates a lot of opportunities for the Wests Tigers.
“But at Origin level, you don’t get away with it. He got dominated in the ruck, he was held down for an eternity. The poor bugger that took the next hit up got smashed.
“And then of course, our very first set of six, our kick is charged down. What NSW needed then was our big guys go forward and complete the set of six rather than backing into the line.”
