NSW Blues greats defend Laurie Daley from criticism ahead of Game 3, coaching record, contract

“I sort of always felt that Queensland media was always with us no matter what a little bit. That’s just a sense that I got,” Tate said.

“We’d have to be going pretty bad for them to get into us. I was pretty lucky to play through a pretty blessed era too where we probably never gave them a real reason to be able to write anything negative because we were pretty successful.”

On the flipside, as former Blues five-eighth Luke Keary pointed out, while the coverage in NSW may “feel a lot harsher” there is a simple reason for that.

“They’ve lost a lot more in the last 20 years… that’s just what happens when you lose,” he said.

Maybe it’s also just that famous Queensland spirit? Whether you consider it a modern-day myth or not, Tate said it is real – even if he admitted it is “hard to put into words”.

“At the end of the day there just was no price I wasn’t willing to pay for the jersey,” he said.

“I genuinely mean that.”

Matty Johns, on the other hand, said there is a “belief” problem in this Blues playing squad right now, one which wasn’t there under Michael Maguire when NSW last won the shield.

Maguire wasn’t afraid to take Billy Slater “head on” as Braith Anasta put it last month, cryptically calling out the Queensland coach with his “glass houses” comment in the successful 2024 series.

There has been none of that from Daley in his two years in charge since taking over from Maguire, and to Keary there has been a “big difference” in the way the two coaches have shown their passion.

“Laurie said it before: he wants to win really badly. He wants it for the players and for the state. And then there’s what I experienced with Madge and Freddy… there is a way about doing it and going above and beyond,” Keary said last month.

But for Daley, whose kindness is at times mistaken for a weakness, what does going above and beyond even look like?

THE DALEY ‘CHALLENGE’ THAT INSPIRED 2014 TRIUMPH

Why not ask one of the players who last won an Origin series under Daley’s watch.

“Every coach is different,” Josh Reynolds said.

“But all I know is, when I played in 2014 and Trent Hodkinson and I were the halves, put the team lists next to each other.”

Billy Slater at fullback. Johnathan Thurston and Daly Cherry-Evans in the halves. Cameron Smith at hooker. Greg Inglis and Justin Hodges in the centres. Matthew Scott and Nate Myles up front. Sam Thaiday at lock. Brent Tate and Darius Boyd on the wings.

“There was no actual game plan that we really could have come up with to actually beat that side,” added Reynolds.

“There’s going to be future immortals in that team easily. Probably one of the best Queensland sides ever.

“But I know one thing that Loz did. He gave especially Hodko and I the belief that we were meant to be here.

“You know what? Sometimes that’s all I needed.”

That 2014 Blues team wasn’t short of legendary names either.

Robbie Farah at hooker. Paul Gallen at prop. Eventual Dally M winner Jarryd Hayne at fullback.

But Reynolds and Trent Hodkinson in the halves?

While they will now go down in history, at the time they were just the latest club combination in a long list of pairings that had failed to end this Queensland dynasty.

In fact, they were the 16th and 17th players used at five-eighth and halfback since the start of the 2006 series, replacing Roosters incumbents and premiership-winning duo James Maloney and Mitchell Pearce.

But Daley believed in them, even if at first they may not have quite believed in themselves – at least in this arena. So, Daley went about changing that.

“Loz challenged us,” Reynolds said.

Specifically, one of the first things he did in camp was get Reynolds and Hodkinson to run the attack meetings. Why?

Well, they were otherwise playing in club land under a coach in Des Hasler who loved to control most things – and that included the game plan.

“So for us as halves, we didn’t really even have to really do too much,” Reynolds said.

That changed the moment they stepped into Blues camp, and it was “daunting” at first.

“Because we’re coming into this camp in a very tough jersey,” added Reynolds.

“To be the six and the seven for the Blues, there’s always scrutiny. Imagine us trying to tell Paul Gallen, Robbie Farah, Luke Lewis, Greg Bird and Jarryd Hayne what the game plan was.

“But just that little challenge that Loz put on us for the rest of my career, it actually made me way more confident in my role. Because I wasn’t used to that in club land.

“But that itself, Loz obviously identified that and challenged us on it. Yes, we were uncomfortable. Yes, it was very hard the first couple of times.

“But by the end of it, I’ll tell you what, the boys were coming to us, asking us about the game plan and asking us what we think and this and that.”

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The result wasn’t just a more confident version of the Bulldogs pair in Origin. Reynolds revealed they even went back to Belmore and “challenged Des a bit”.

“We said, ‘Des we’re on the field, right? So let us tell the players that we know this and let us own this’.”

It was just one example, according to Reynolds, of the way Daley was able to read his playing group and figure out what would work best in that limited window he had with them.

And that limited window is the main reason why Tate said there is a “massive difference” between the weekly grind of the NRL and Origin.

“It’s completely different, chalk and cheese almost to be honest,” he added.

All the former players and coaches foxsports.com.au spoke with from both sides of the border said the same thing: that Origin is less so about the X’s and O’s and more about a feeling.

The environment and culture the coach is able to create within the playing group.

“It’s important that everyone connects well,” Walters said.

“I can’t imagine Mal Meninga was going in there telling Cameron Smith, telling Cooper Cronk, telling Johnathan Thurston, the X’s and O’s,” added Reynolds.

“A coach shouldn’t have to go into a New South Wales side and really give you a massive game plan, I don’t think.”

In fact, Reynolds questioned if it would even work having a coach that was “too overbearing” in the Origin arena.

Coaching the micro parts of the game, like Daley giving Ethan Strange hints on how to attack down the short side of the field or when to use his running game? Sure.

But the “macro stuff”, as Reynolds put it, is largely left “up to the players and spine to deliver”, which is again why it can be hard to know how much blame to attribute to Daley — and Origin coaches in general — when the attacking and defensive structures break down.

There are two things with Daley, however, that can’t be questioned and they are the two things that his biggest defenders mention.

First, that he’s “one of the best blokes in rugby league I’ve ever met” as Reynolds put it and second, he was one hell of a player.

To repeat, he was one hell of a player. But that’s in the past and as for him being a nice guy, does that even matter?

LAURIE IS ‘ONE OF THE BEST BLOKES’ AND AN ORIGIN LEGEND… SO WHAT?

Well, while most of Daley’s critics may roll their eyes when those two lines are brought up, if you speak to someone like Reynolds who played under him you get a better sense for why those two qualities matter more than it may appear on the surface.

Starting with the ‘nice guy’ personality, you can’t say that it has prevented Daley from making big calls when he needed to.

Just ask Haumole Olakau’atu, Dylan Lucas or Brian To’o.

You don’t necessarily have to agree with any of the decisions. That is another debate entirely.

But you have to at least give Daley some credit for not shying away from making changes.

And forget the current players. What about Reynolds himself? He was part of that drought-breaking Blues team in 2014 before being dropped for the following year’s series.

Reynolds was “devastated”.

“We won the series, and it killed me to not be in that team,” he said.

“I wasn’t in great form, mind you, in club land. I remember speaking on the phone to Loz for a long time because I was just questioning a lot of things.

“The one thing I will say is it was never awkward between Loz and I. Even my friends would say, ‘Why did he drop you’, but it was the way he’d done it.

“It was the conversation we had around it. It was the way he did care for me in that time. He rang me a couple of times, even after that series. He doesn’t have to do that. He never really has to ever talk to me again.”

In fact, that first conversation when Daley was telling Reynolds he was dropped could have been their last had it not been for the way he went about it.

“I could have really sort of wiped him forever,” Reynolds admitted.

“Because you do, there’s sometimes coaches where you’re like, ‘Nah, I didn’t like what he’d done, and you don’t really ever have to see him again’.

“But I see Loz now every day, and the way he’d done it, it was tough for me, absolutely it was. But the way he explained it, the way he went about it as a coach, I fully respected it.”

So, even if he is rugby league’s nicest man, maybe that’s not such a bad thing? And maybe, if anything, it can actually help in the scenario where Daley decides to recall a player he had previously dropped, as is the case this series with Olakau’atu.

But too nice?

Reynolds doesn’t even know what that means.

“What do you want him to be? An a**ehole? Do you want him to be like some coaches that give the media absolutely nothing and just literally sit there,” Reynolds said.

“He’s a good guy. Yes he won’t just always talk about himself. He’ll ask you how your family is. He’ll get to know you on another level.

“Are all coaches like that? Absolutely not. For some coaches it’s a job, that’s what you’re there to do and that’s the relationship with the players but I don’t want that type of coach.

“I want a coach that actually wants to know my daughter’s name. I want a coach that also wants to know about my family and how my life’s going.”

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Why? Because coaching is about getting the best out of a player and the first step to doing that is building trust.

As pleasant as Daley may be as a person and a coach, during his playing days there was also a different side the moment he stepped onto the field. Don’t believe me?

“Go back and watch game three of the 1994 series up there in Queensland,” said former Blues teammate Ben Elias.

“There’s no Mr. Nice Guy there.

“He snapped Mal Meninga, who was his other centre over in Canberra, in half.”

“I can tell you it’s in there,” added Kevin Walters, who spoke to the “killer instinct” Daley has which saw him win three premierships, five Origin series and one Dally M Player of the Year medal in his career.

“You can’t have a record like his unless you’ve got that drive and that desire. That’s the proof in the pudding.”

Which brings us to the other common defence of Daley’s coaching record. That Daley, a legend of our great game, should be given more respect for what he achieved during his playing career.

It is the one thing that “annoys” Reynolds more than anything else when it comes to the criticism Daley has copped since taking over from Michael Maguire two years ago.

“Whatever you think about Loz as a coach is fine, have an opinion on it. But just never forget what he’d done in that jersey,” Reynolds said.

“That should never be forgotten — ever.”

But again, why should that matter? Why, in the context of Daley having a 40 per cent win record as an Origin coach, should anyone even be thinking about something that happened more than two decades ago?

Well, because when Daley speaks his players listen just that little bit more closely because they know the weight of his words. That includes Reynolds.

Despite being part of that famous 2014 series win, he still doesn’t consider himself an Origin player.

But Daley made him feel like one, and a lot of that goes back to the experience Daley could draw on as a Blues legend himself.

“Loz gave me belief, and that’s all I needed because we were already good enough to be in that arena,” Reynolds said.

“I know people judge him on his coaching and look, if people are gonna say you’re his mate, absolutely I am and I’ll back him to the hills all the time.

“But at the same time, with my experience, there were just a couple of little things that he’d done to make us believe that we were meant to be in those jerseys.”

HAS THE CRITICISM GONE TOO FAR?

So, has the criticism of Daley gone too far?

Veteran rugby league reporter Dean Ritchie certainly seemed to think so after Game 2, calling out the “online pile-on” which he described as “disgusting” and “revolting”.

Elias, meanwhile, said he felt compelled to rally the former Blues captains together in the wake of the MCG collapse because he could tell that “Lozza was a little bit dejected”.

“I could see it after game two,” he added.

“I thought, mate, let’s get him confidence and just let him know what we all believe in and not one player, not one ex-player, said a bad word about him.”

There have been plenty of bad words said about Daley and the Blues over the course of the series though.

The use of the interchange in Melbourne. Selections. Players he has remained loyal to. Players he has left out. All of it has been dissected.

According to Russell, it is fair game.

“I have heard people criticise Cam Murray for not starting. It is a great argument when you look at the facts and figures they put through,” he said.

“I’ve heard people arguing that they shouldn’t be playing an 80-minute hooker. When you look at the 0-7 record they keep trotting out, why shouldn’t we be presented with that?

“When they’re changing selections like they have, it’s the job of the media to critique that.

“Look at Jack Bostock being picked over Brian To’o. I was speaking with To’o’s Samoa coach Ben Gardiner, who mounted a compelling argument that might not be the right move for New South Wales, and he’s a big Jack Bostock fan.

“So that criticism to me is based on well thought, well researched statistics and optical takes — and that’s what rugby league thrives on. That’s what Origin has long thrived on.

“I don’t know whether there’s been a lot of criticism that’s off the mark.”

Elias, however, wants the rest of NSW — from the media to fans at home proudly wearing their colours — to get behind Daley.

“I’m sick and tired of people, especially our own people, bagging him,” he said.

“Journalists who have been saying some despicable stuff about him. Some weak, weak people that say things and hide behind comments on social media. Shame on all those people.

“They don’t know Laurie Daley. For those people who say and comment like that, they’re the weak people of the world and hide behind their comments on social media, which has been disgraceful. Shame on them, that’s all I can say.”

Daley cryptically told reporters that he would he address the criticism of his performance after Game 3 and while there is no place in the game for abuse of any kind, the confusion seems to stem from what exactly Elias — and other vocal former Blues players — are referring to.

Is it some of the criticism from the media that has gone too far? Or punters on social media who have gone beyond what is acceptable?

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‘Strange & Haumole don’t get on!’ | 02:28

Elias said it wasn’t his place to comment on that, although he was more than willing to accept that discussion of Daley’s use of the bench in Game 2 was fair game.

“I think he knows how and why to utilise the bench now more than ever before in his career as a player and as a coach,” he said.

Elias added he has “no problems” with anyone who believes Daley’s playing career is irrelevant in any assessment of his coaching performance.

But to those people he had a reminder.

“These are three games that you play. Laurie’s not going to teach any of the players any new skills or any new tricks,” he explained.

“It’s about management. In England they call them player managers.

“And I believe that Laurie’s realised that and that the coin has dropped, that he’s just got to manage his players and understand and believe in them.

“That is one thing that I know that he can ooze into the players because of his experience as a player, as a supporter, and now as a coach.”

If there was one criticism of Daley during the series that hasn’t sat well with people, and especially those who know him personally, it was the leak that claimed his pre-game speeches were basically putting players to sleep.

Gorden Tallis went as far as to claim that if a player leaked that information to the media they should “never play again”, while Braith Anasta described it as a “hit piece” from the Queensland press.

Reynolds, meanwhile, said it was “obviously an over-exaggeration” but had a similarly blunt message to Tallis — regardless of where the truth may lie in how it got out.

“You’re a grown man, you’re playing NRL, you’re playing for your state. If you need another man to pump you up for an occasion like that what I think you should honestly do is go look in the mirror, take your jersey off and give it back,” Reynolds said.

“No one needs to be pumped up. In that arena, in that cauldron, the honour, the jersey that you’re putting on — if you actually need motivation, I don’t think you should be there.

“That’s the thing that really annoyed me the most about that. We’re not in under-12s where our coach needs to pump us up and tell us what we need to do, and half yell at you.”

How will Laurie utilise the bench in G3? | 01:24

THE ULTIMATE CHANCE TO SILENCE HIS CRITICS

Instead, Daley had a simple and yet powerful message for his players after the MCG loss.

“Win a series up there in a decider,” he said, “and you’ll be remembered for all time”.

Surely there is no greater motivation than that?

Both Cooper Cronk and Greg Alexander, two legends from different sides of the border, agreed earlier this week a Blues win would be one of NSW’s “greatest victories”.

“Because right now it looks a million miles away,” Alexander added on ‘Matty & Cronk’.

Everything is pointing towards a Queensland win.

The form guide says they should do it comfortably. Yes, the series is tied up. Yes, the Blues won Game 1. But you can’t just ignore how they won it, or how Queensland was the far superior side up until the point they went down a man.

The history books paint a daunting picture too.

The Blues have won just two of the 10 series that have gone to deciders after they went up 1-0. Their last win after losing Game 2 with the shield on the line was in 2004. That was in NSW though. Up at Suncorp, they have never won a decider off a loss.

And that is without even mentioning Daley’s own record.

But again, that is why more than ever before this NSW team in particular will be “remembered for all time” if somehow, against all odds, they pull this off.

“It’s a huge opportunity,” Russell said.

“It is massive because let’s face it, Queensland with an unchanged starting 13 and with the way they won game two, aided by Suncorp Stadium and that huge Queensland crowd, are expected to win this game.

“Laurie Daley has made multiple selections for which he’s open to criticism, but if they work, if they win, it will be a huge coaching achievement.”

And if that happens, the entire narrative surrounding this series changes according to Luke Keary.

“You can judge his coaching career after that,” Keary said.

“Call him a good bloke, a bad bloke, a good coach, a bad coach. Nothing else really matters until the result next week.”

But regardless of the result, Reynolds “can’t wait” to catch up with Daley for a beer after the series. They’ll reminisce. They’ll share a few laughs and maybe, they’ll celebrate.

There will also come a time where Daley will open up. About where things went wrong, or right. About how the shield was won, or lost. And about those people who went too far.

“I think there will be a couple that probably crossed the line with him,” Reynolds said.

“I’m just guessing that, but I reckon there’ll be a couple of guys that Loz will have a different opinion of.”

In that moment, a different side to “one of the best blokes in rugby league” will come out.

“And by then I reckon,” Reynolds said, “you’ll probably see the no ‘Mr Nice Guy’ side.”

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