Former NSW Blues halves Todd Carney and Mitchell Pearce haven’t held back about the State of Origin series loss to Queensland.
“Deep in my soul I thought we were going to win, and win comfortably, it was a shock,” Pearce said this morning on the Sixes and Sevens Podcast following last night’s Game III defeat at Accor Stadium.
“Everyone in the state would be hurting, but I think the most deflating thing for the players, they’d be shaking their heads thinking ‘what the **** just happened?’”
While stopping short of directly blaming Blues coach Laurie Daley, both Pearce and Carney pointed to tactics as being the critical difference.
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“I have to put it straight out, I think we got out-coached,” Pearce said.
“I think Billy Slater came in with a plan to complete high and shut down our edges with quick line speed.
“(Queensland’s) edge defence was relentless and that led to a lack of creativity from NSW, they just took out all our best players and gave them no room to move.”
‘Our forwards were ****ed’
Pearce then said the accumulation of pressure and lack of possession eventually took its toll on the Blues, especially the forward pack.
“Queensland had their first error in the last 10 minutes of the game, you couldn’t write a better script,” he said.
“Our forwards were ****ed, Reece Robson came off after 53 minutes and had already made 46 tackles, it’s unheard of.
“No-one can win a game when you’re on the back of that much possession, and it was all from the system and the coaching, so well done to Queensland.”
Carney agreed, and suggested the writing was possibly on the wall even before kick off in terms of tactics.
“Queensland were always talking about having a plan to combat New South Wales,” Carney said.
“Even before the game on Channel Nine Billy spoke about his plan and what (Queensland) was going into the game to do.
“Loz (Daley) just spoke about the great week they’ve had in camp, ‘we’ve come together really good’, but he didn’t really speak about what the team was going to do on the night, what was our plan to beat Queensland?”
“I also think we didn’t change anything (during the series), where every game Queensland came in with a different plan to beat us.”