Andrew Johns would have Mitchell Moses partner Nathan Cleary in the Blues halves for next year’s State of Origin series-opener after Jarome Luai’s “poor” game three performance.
Despite forming statistically the most successful halves combination in NRL history, Johns said Luai and Cleary “weren’t on the same page” in Wednesday night’s loss, and it should cost the former his spot in the team.
The second half in particular, a couple of times we investigated down the right side, and then the ball came back … and then Nathan would end up sort of looking for his partner in crime and end up just playing inside and negate any good work we did,” Johns told Wide World of Sports’ Immortal Behaviour.
Cleary and Luai won four NRL premierships side by side at Penrith, but Johns says the combination is not working at Origin level.
More broadly, the legendary halfback criticised NSW’s approach of trying to replicate the Panthers game plans in a representative team.
Johns said while Cleary would be “shattered” by his own poor performance in the series decider, he remains the best best choice as Blues No.7 going forward.
It was all sort of built around Nathan – game on the line, series decider, he hasn’t won a decider yet, on our home turf … this is his time. He’d be hugely disappointed,” Johns said.
“To get his team home would have been a superhuman performance, but you’ve got to do that to get your legacy at that level.”
Johns suggested Cleary looked out of ideas once the Maroons started to get on top, and needed to “find that plan B or plan C when plan A isn’t working”.
“It comes down to pressure, and also fatigue. That’s what we can’t measure. You can’t see these blokes are just absolutely flat-lining, but when you talk about courage and toughness as a halfback, this is your toughness. You’ve got to play when you’re absolutely dragging your backside.
“He’ll be better for it, but moving forward he’s our No.7.
“Jarome was pretty poor – it wasn’t a great Origin performance. Moving forward, everyone fully fit, I think it’s Nathan and Moses.”
Johns went on to explain he felt he was playing his best footy in 2002-2003, when he was 28-29 years old. Cleary turns 28 in November.
He said he didn’t believe Cleary’s legacy would be impacted by his Origin III performance.
“It’s another challenge on the road. I don’t think it affects his legacy, but until he nails a decider, it’ll hang over his head – which Nathan knows,” he said.
“But it’ll happen. He’ll nail a decider, but that from an individual performance will be making him hurt.
“He’ll come back from it – he’s a champion player.”
