{"id":397391,"date":"2024-05-27T00:52:57","date_gmt":"2024-05-27T00:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=397391"},"modified":"2024-05-27T02:05:48","modified_gmt":"2024-05-27T02:05:48","slug":"gal-blues-debutant-almost-played-himself-out-of-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=397391","title":{"rendered":"Gal: Blues debutant almost 'played himself out' of team"},"content":{"rendered":"

NRL great<\/em><\/strong> PAUL GALLEN<\/em><\/strong><\/a> will appear on Nine's 100% FOOTY every Monday night of the NRL season, debating rugby league's hottest topics alongside Phil Gould and James Bracey. Tune in LIVE at 7.30pm (AEST) on<\/em><\/strong> 9Now<\/em><\/strong><\/a> tonight following a bumper round 12!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I have to say I do feel for James Tedesco<\/a> after being dropped from the New South Wales team<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I had Teddy at fullback when I named my ideal Blues line-up a week ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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He's been so good for the Blues<\/a> for such a long time, and he's been in good form for the Roosters this season so I thought he deserved to keep his spot.<\/p>\n

I would have had him in the team, and there's no doubt he would have done a good job for us again.\ufeff<\/p>\n

In saying that I can see why Michael Maguire has gone with Dylan Edwards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"NSW<\/p>\n

He's been in terrific form\ufeff consistently over three or four years now, so no one can begrudge him earning his spot in the Origin<\/a> team.<\/p>\n

I also don't think there will be much difference in the NSW game plan with Edwards there instead of Tedesco.<\/p>\n

They are very similar players – they are workhorse type fullbacks who bring plenty of energy and are good in both attack and defence.<\/p>\n

Watch the 2024 NRL premiership live and free on Nine and<\/strong><\/em> 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The main difference I see is Teddy has a slight advantage in ball-playing, which is why I would have kept him there.<\/p>\n

But people say Edwards works harder than any player in the NRL and he will definitely do the job Madge asks him to.<\/p>\n

Neither of those blokes are overly tall so they don't exactly provide a kicking threat, but that's why we've gone tall in the outside backs.<\/p>\n

Stephen Crichton, Joseph Suaalii, and Zac Lomax are all good in the air and we need them to counter the towering Queensland backs like Xavier Coates and Selwyn Cobbo.<\/p>\n

When I named my team last week I had Lomax in it, but on Saturday I actually dropped him when revising my team on 2GB's Continuous Call Team<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I thought Lomax basically played himself out of a jersey on Thursday night \ufeffwhen the Dragons were awful against the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n

I also had Latrell Mitchell in my centres, but other than that – and Reece Robson at hooker rather than Blayke Brailey – my team was pretty close to what Maguire has gone with.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I love our backline. I had some concerns about Suaalii's defence at centre, because I think he can get lost sometimes for the Roosters, but I'm sure the Blues will have a system in place that works.\ufeff<\/p>\n

He will have a big job next Wednesday defending either Val Holmes or Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow.<\/p>\n

Robson at hooker, and with no back-up on the bench, is also an interesting selection for mine. I had Brailey as my No.9 but obviously Robson is a bigger body which will be good in defence for us.<\/p>\n

North Queensland's last two games probably pushed Robson ahead, because the Cowboys were pretty bad earlier in the season.<\/p>\n

And with Cameron McInnes named to start at lock I'd imagine he might be used as a replacement hooker later in the contest – although Robson can play 80 minutes.<\/p>\n

I think the plan will be for McInnes to play the first 20 or 25 minutes – which is normally pretty brutal – and then be replaced by Isaah Yeo at lock.<\/p>\n

McInnes will then be on the bench if we need him later in the game.<\/p>\n

\ufeffOverall I really like the team Madge has picked, and there's honestly no player there who you can say doesn't deserve his spot.<\/p>\n

The Blues know they have to win the first two games of the series, because history says we don't want to be heading to Brisbane for a decider.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NRL great PAUL GALLEN will appear on Nine's 100% FOOTY every Monday night of the NRL season, debating rugby league's hottest topics alongside Phil Gould […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":350452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=397391"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397394,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397391\/revisions\/397394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/350452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=397391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=397391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=397391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}