{"id":405795,"date":"2024-06-24T02:12:08","date_gmt":"2024-06-24T02:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=405795"},"modified":"2024-06-24T05:09:32","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T05:09:32","slug":"maroons-star-bites-back-at-joeys-latrell-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=405795","title":{"rendered":"Maroons star bites back at Joey's Latrell claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queensland<\/a> is wary of Latrell Mitchell<\/a>'s Origin return but the Maroons are denying the superstar centre has already won a mental battle.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Mitchell will play his first State of Origin<\/a> game in three years on Wednesday night when he lines up for New South Wales<\/a> at left centre.<\/p>\n

\ufeffMany pundits are tipping the South Sydney wrecking ball to dominate like he did during the victorious 2021 series – the last time NSW held the coveted shield.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Bunnies facing 'catastrophe' over brutal exit call<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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And he is having a mighty impact on the Maroons even before he runs onto the MCG, according to Blues legend Andrew Johns.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffHe's got that X-factor," Johns told Wide World of Sports' Immortal Behaviour<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffYou read in the paper Valentine Holmes is already talking about him, 'I'm going to get in Latrell's face', so he's in their head."<\/p>\n

\"Andrew<\/p>\n

Queensland veteran Ben Hunt concedes Mitchell is a dangerous player, but hit out at suggestions he has the Maroons shaking in their boots.<\/p>\n

"He hasn't got into our heads at all," Hunt said of Mitchell on Monday.<\/p>\n

"We've done preparation on him, like you would on any good player – there are a lot of guys in that team who could hurt us as well.<\/p>\n

"We can't go into an Origin match completely worried about one player.\ufeff"<\/p>\n

Watch the 2024 State of Origin series exclusively live and free on Nine and<\/strong><\/em> 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.\ufeff<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Last week legendary Blues coach Phil Gould highlighted the defensive gap that Mitchell will look to exploit on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

While defending Mitchell will be a whole-team focus, the job of marking him directly falls to Maroons veteran Holmes.<\/p>\n

\ufeffHunt has confidence in his teammate to fulfil the assignment.<\/p>\n

\"Latrell<\/p>\n

"Huge threat, we all know what Latrell is capable of and what he's done in the Origin arena," Hunt said.<\/p>\n

"We're going to have our hands pretty full trying to hang onto him.<\/p>\n

"We need to be very disciplined in how we defend him, defend him as a team. If we give him any bit of room he's going to hurt us.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"We've got faith in Val to do his job. He's been playing Origin for a long time now so he will get out there and do his job."<\/p>\n

The Blues are banking on Mitchell's return helping them win in Melbourne to force a series decider at Suncorp Stadium next month.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Queensland is wary of Latrell Mitchell's Origin return but the Maroons are denying the superstar centre has already won a mental battle.\ufeff Mitchell will play […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":405797,"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\/405795"}],"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=405795"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":405799,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405795\/revisions\/405799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/405797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=405795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=405795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=405795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}