Only played the one game and was found out once or twice, and finished the game with an injury that kept him out for months.
I don't actually remember McManus being that bad out there. NSW have had waaaaay too many failures out there though: Turner Wolfy Akuila Uate v2 Quinn Merritt Monaghan sure I'm forgetting a few.
He got caught in no man's land on two tries IIRC, but in both situations the defence was pretty much already fucked.
Yeah I didn't think Hayne would make it. After hearing that he won't play tonight I thought well, how can he possibly know that he'll be fit for Origin 2 having not played since rd13 and not being able to run at full pelt yet?
McManus wasn't really at fault for Inglis's first in the first half of Game I 09. Lyon gave him way too much room. Having said that, once McManus finally made the decision to come in, his attempted tackle on GI's upper half was pretty poor. It was just an all-round soft try. There was no overlap, NSW just didn't move up and the contact was terrible. I'n not so sure I'd blame McManus for Boyd's try in the last 60 seconds either. Inglis this time fended off Craig Wing who was defending at centre and though I think wingers typically ought to stay out to give their inside men the chance to cover, I really don't think they would've got to Inglis before he scored. McManus had to come in. The wing play from both McManus and especially Hayne, was abysmal but it didn't really coincide with points. You really need to watch the whole game to see how often they were caught out. And however many times McManus was, Hayne was two fold.
Yep, got caught too far infield for Inglis's try but that one came off a really late offload from Myles. The only other time was for the last try of the game where he was back-pedalling on a two-on-two with against Inglis and Boyd off the back of a scrum. I don't think either of them were particularly bad instances of defence though. Sometimes as a winger life just screws you over ... Edit: looks like I was beaten to it
I still blame a lot of the NSW winger retardation on the coaching. It's so obvious that coaches are telling them to rush in. Seldom has there been a positional/defensive success story on the NSW flanks since the streak began. I'm pretty sure I even recall Gordon being caught out when he played. It's like they think it's the only way to stop the QLD centres, or they'll shit themselves and throw the ball into touch or something.
My biggest worry with McManus is really that his aerial play and dummy-half running will suffer at the highest level because he just isn't that big or fast to begin with. He does his best work out of our own end by targeting certain players in the opposition line to carry forward as they try to tackle him, but it's such a step up in intensity when trying to make ground out of your own end in Origin that he might struggle to be anywhere near as effective as he is at NRL level. Similarly, the quality of both the kickers and wingers he'll be up against are of such a high quality that near perfection is required.
I don't really see McManus as a threat from his own end, in Origin. And despite everyone finally jumping on MF's bandwagon about Uate, he actually was really hard to contain from acting half. I don't miss his bullocking runs.
I don't think so. You have a team that has had the same spine from last few years, been the dominant side for three halves and has been injected with DCE and Papalii which adds a lot more strength to the side. NSW has no Hayne and Dugan at the back with the possibility that Gallen will not play. Home advantage is big but the NSW squad is just that much weaker on paper that they can't be favorites.
