State of Origin 2018 Game 3: Queensland Maroons v NSW Blues – live!

11 July 2018 09:53
Updates from the series finale at Suncorp StadiumFeel free to get in touch on email or tweet @mike_hytner 10.52am BST And here comes Smith onto the Suncorp pitch. He stands on the stage, flanked by his wife, Barb, and kids and thanks. everyone. From the bottom of his heart. Then he’s asked about tonight’s game.“We’ve got a lot young guys in the squad now and its their turn to shine in the jersey. It’s important for Queensland to send Billy Slater off a winner. He deserves that. He’s been one of Queensland’s finest rugby league players for while now.” 10.48am BST Following on from the tribute for Billy Slater (including plenty of horse riding), Channel Nine are now turning their focus to retired great Cameron Smith. There won’t, one would assume, be a mention of Brad Fittler’s incendiary comments the other day about the reasons for Smith’s rep retirement – that he was running scared of NSW’s Baby Blues. 10.42am BST Kick-off is scheduled for 8pm local time, but as is Origin tradition, the game absolutely won’t start then. Making predictions is a mug’s game, but hey ho, in the spirit of Origin bingo, I’ll go for 8:12pm. 10.36am BST And here’s how the Blues lineup, with a late change seeing Jake Trbojevic starting at lock in place of Jack de Belin:1. James Tedesco 2. Tom Trbojevic 3. Latrell Mitchell 4. James Roberts 5. Josh Addo-Carr 6. James Maloney 7. Nathan Cleary 8. David Klemmer 9. Damien Cook 10. Paul Vaughan 11. Boyd Cordner (c) 12. Tyson Frizell 15. Jake Trbojevic 13. Jack de Belin 14. Tariq Sims 16. Angus Crichton 17. Tyrone Peachey 10.33am BST A quick reminder of how we got to this point: a thrilling Game 2 performance from the “Baby Blues”. Related: State of Origin 2018: New South Wales clinch just second series in 13 years 10.30am BST Here’s Matt Cleary with his Game 3 preview:For a variety of reasons the concept of friendlies to the majority of Australian sports folk is a foreign one. Be it the dearth of international football played, or some chippy competitive spirit borne out of convict anthropology, Australia doesn’t really play friendly matches. And in rugby league they don’t exist at all.Because you can’t play rugby league thus. Tackles are called hits or shots. The game demands commitment, confrontation and cartoon hate. In 2001 they held an old boys’ game of legends from NSW and Queensland, and Mark McGaw went all red mist on Mal Meninga, and the pair traded blows. Their combined age was 78. And that was a friendly, but the mien of old league dogs dies hard. Related: Cartoon hate of State of Origin demands commitment and confrontation | Matt Cleary 10.23am BST With no Greg Inglis Inglis tonight, Queensland have been forced into making a few changes, but coach Kevin Walters insists his team is ready to make an impression. “We’ve been trying to cut loose for two game,” he has just told Channel Nine. “Our preparation has been good again. We just need to get a win under our belt. There’s a real expectation that we’re going to play well tonight.” 10.16am BST Dead rubber – a sporting term; used in description of a match in a league or series where the series’ result has already been decided by previous matches’ results. The dead rubber match therefore has no effect on the winner and loser of the series, other than the number of matches won and lost and can be considered entirely superfluous.Hmm. Well, yes, in some circles it could be deemed “entirely superfluous”. But not in State of Origin. In State of Origin the result absolutely will have an effect on the players involved – and the people of either state. There is no such thing as a dead rubber in Origin football and tonight’s match will be contested just as intensely as another other game. Continue readingread full article

Source: TheGuardian