Picking Daly Cherry-Evans as a bench utility came back to bite Queensland in the State of Origin opener, Maroons selectors boss Des Morris says.
Cherry-Evans may be one of the NRL’s elite halfbacks but Morris admitted “everyone but” the Manly playmaker spent time at No.7 at Maroons training in the Origin I lead-up.
Cherry-Evans had been used more as a mobile backrower since his Origin debut last year and trained as such ahead of the series opener – a move that backfired on Wednesday night.
Cherry-Evans failed to find a groove with halves partner Johnathan Thurston in Queensland’s 12-8 loss to NSW after slotting in for injured No.7 Cooper Cronk (broken arm) in the first 10 minutes.
“He was picked as a utility so everyone but him trained at halfback at training,” Morris told AAP.
“(As a result) there was a communication breakdown (with Thurston) and Daly’s transition (to Queensland halfback) was not as smooth as we would have thought.
“But he’s a class player and he can build on that.”
Morris said the only thing he rued about Queensland’s Origin I camp was Cherry-Evans not spending time at No.7.
The Maroons sparked calls of “arrogance” south of the Tweed when they appeared so confident before game one that they reduced training sessions at their Origin camp.
Queensland centre Greg Inglis had said the reigning eight-time Origin champions could afford to reduce sessions because they were so in tune with each other after years of playing together that they did not have to speak to each other.
Morris did not have a problem with that attitude even after Queensland were defeated by a NSW side that left no stone unturned in their preparation, even hiring leading sport scientist Dr Craig Duncan and a team of interns to oversee daily testing of each NSW player.
“I don’t think the way they conducted themselves at camp is a problem,” Morris said.
“If we had been beaten by 20 we would probably look at changing our strategy but we were not too far off the mark – NSW were just too good and credit to them.
“It was two tries apiece on Wednesday night. It could have gone either way.”
Veteran winger Brent Tate defended coach Mal Meninga’s camp gameplan.
“We had a great preparation. I don’t think we would change too much,” he said.
“Just sometimes on the night the execution was not there.
“It’s disappointing but we are not going to start panicking, throw everything out the window and start again.”
