{"id":94494,"date":"2021-07-03T00:20:52","date_gmt":"2021-07-03T00:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=94494"},"modified":"2021-07-03T01:59:12","modified_gmt":"2021-07-03T01:59:12","slug":"origin-legends-next-challenge-for-munster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=94494","title":{"rendered":"Origin legend's 'next challenge' for Munster"},"content":{"rendered":"

NSW Blues great Andrew Johns says the criticism levelled at Cameron Munster<\/a> after the first two State of Origin<\/a> matches is "fair", outlining the difference between he and Queensland legends Wally Lewis and Darren Lockyer.<\/p>\n

Munster was criticised for his half-time interview in Queensland's 26-0 Origin II loss<\/a> where he openly put his teammates on blast for their first-half performance, with Maroons great Cooper Cronk<\/a> particularly scathing in his assessment. <\/p>\n

<\/strong>MORE: <\/strong>Bellamy defends Munster over 'grub' comments<\/a><\/p>\n

The Storm star was roundly praised for leading Queensland to a shock 2-1 series win last year, and Johns said his "next challenge" was to make his teammates better.<\/p>\n

"He's been quiet without a doubt, but he's playing on the back foot," he told Wide World of Sports' Immortal Behaviour<\/em>. <\/p>\n

\"Cameron<\/p>\n

"Their forwards have been smashed. NSW's middles, [Payne] Haas, Junior Paulo, Daniel Saifiti has been playing unbelievable, they just smashed him in the middle.<\/p>\n

"The back five for NSW, [James] Tedesco, [Josh Addo-Carr], [Latrell Mitchell], [Tom Trbojevic], [Brian] To'o, they were all running for over 150 metres. If you look at Queensland's back five, they were running 80-90, maybe 100-120 metres.<\/p>\n

"We just smashed them at the ruck and when you're getting smashed at the ruck it's hard to carry your team, but that's the next challenge for Munster." <\/p>\n

"Wally Lewis did it, Darren Lockyer could do it, where their teams were getting smashed but they carried them, so that's Munster's challenge.<\/p>\n

"I think [the criticism is] fair. He has to find a way to impose himself on the game when things aren't going well."<\/p>\n

\"Valentine<\/p>\n

Queensland has been outscored 76-6 through the first two Origin contests and Johns admitted that Munster wasn't solely to blame for the Maroons' struggles.<\/p>\n

"I blame the halves, but I also blame Valentine Holmes," he said.<\/p>\n

"As a halfback, you're organising your gang, so you're talking to the hooker and you're talking to your middles, but from out wide, they're relaying to you, so then Munster's relaying to DCE and Valentine Holmes has got to be talking to Daly and Munster, but it was breaking down. <\/p>\n

"Those three players weren't on the same page and also Andrew McCullough, his service from dummy half was a bit dodgy. Their spine just didn't combine at all.<\/p>\n

"There were times where they would go to an edge, and you hear [Munster] talking about shape and formation, when they had bodies in motion they had guys overrunning the play by 5-10 metres which at that level you never see."<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/em>For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NSW Blues great Andrew Johns says the criticism levelled at Cameron Munster after the first two State of Origin matches is "fair", outlining the difference […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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\/94494"}],"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=94494"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94496,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94494\/revisions\/94496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}