BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA – JUNE 21: Jarome Luai of the Blues and Reece Walsh of the Maroons scuffle during game two of the State of Origin series between the Queensland Maroons and the New South Wales Blues at Suncorp Stadium on June 21, 2023 in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
NSW have dropped the ball again.
Heading into a dead rubber in Sydney down 2-0 in the 2023 State of Origin series, you can already see the marketing angles now, framed around various iterations of ‘pride on the line’, as the NRL desperately tries to stoke interest in the third instalment which is now unlikely to sell out.
Listening to the coverage leading up to Origin, and now trawling through the bragadocious, sanctimonious social media commentary from Queensland supporters, there’s one line that comes up again and again: ‘NSW just doesn’t get Origin’.
No doubt inflaming an already sensitive situation, NSW five-eighth Jarome Luai took to social media at around 3am after the series loss in Brisbane with some Instagram content.
Fans and commentators have largely been incensed that Luai has provided his own narrative, immediately offended, interpreting the post as a direct message to NSW fans.
It could also have been perceived that Luai was in fact telling Queensland supporters to wind up the celebrations: to get off their high horses and focus on going to their menial daily lives again the next day. Life is about more than just a game of footy.
As it turns out, Luai was (and not for the first time), responding to online trolls who had taken their frustrations at a football game to the next level, threatening the 26-year-old.
The development of this story goes as you’d probably expect with a sizeable chunk of the NRL community taking aim at Luai’s poor execution and communication, rather than with die-hard lunatics who make threats online. Of course Luai would be the villain in this situation.
Regardless of your position, Jarome Luai is just one example of a NSW player having fire and passion – a characteristic that Queenslanders prefer to see in themselves exclusively.
Whether you agree with how Luai, a professional rugby league player (and not a marketing executive) promotes his messaging is irrelevant: he burns for NSW and in each game he’s played, he’s left it all out on the field. It’s difficult to identify a single NSW player who isn’t equally as passionate, if not moreso.
Luai is a relaxed, jovial character off the pitch. He’s regularly punched down on from sections of the commentariat, and punters on social media latch on to the sentiment. Speculating on why that may be could be fruitless.
But on the field, he’s a two-time premiership winner and someone who bleeds for his Panthers and for NSW. He’s a ‘love him or hate him’ character.
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Mistakes have been made, from a coaching perspective. Whether you want to focus on Brad Fittler’s ‘one win from the last four’, or his ‘three wins from the last six’, it doesn’t matter. Once the fans pick up on under-performance, the coach is always going to be the first to go. Perhaps Luai is a welcome ‘look over there’ opportunity for Fittler today.
Having no outside backs on the bench and seeing Damien Cook play 73 minutes at centre, leaving Cameron Murray on the bench for 55 or so minutes and making forwards unusual selections in Stefaon Utoikamanu and Tevita Pangai Junior have been widely criticised. Does that mean that Fittler ‘doesn’t get Origin’? Not necessarily. Billy Slater also made some selection calls that raised eyebrows but they paid off.
Greg Alexander has shed tears in broadcast for NSW. Mark Geyer, Michael Ennis, Danny Buderus, Andrew Johns, Willie Mason and others are all scarily passionate for the Blues’ cause. To say that they don’t get Origin is nothing but trolling. Any invested football fan knows it’s not even close to being true.
[embedded content]But to Queenslanders, the ‘NSW don’t get Origin’ comment is a tactical sledge, and that’s all. They know that it gets under the skin of NSW players, coaching staff and fans. They know that it creates a wedge from which a platform for criticism is born. Every NSW fan is vocal about who should and shouldn’t be in the team, and rather than being a state united, NSW is divided.
Queensland love the underdog tag, and that’s just another arrow in the sling of mind games that they take to every encounter. NSW fans have well and truly taken the bait, too. It’s easy for Queensland to unite as one when the other side is busy tearing itself to shreds, based on that one, tired trope.
Listen to the interview of every player who has ever been selected to play for the Blues. They’ll talk about how it has been their dream since they were young and how they see the Origin arena as the pinnacle of the game, perhaps even higher than International representation.
Jarome Luai is no different, but the way that he copes with pressure doesn’t fit the aesthetic of those who are literally only armchair critics. While far from perfect in games one and two, he was one of NSW’s best, offering creativity, flair and effort.
Luai is the modern day’s Josh Reynolds. Not necessarily gifted, but ultra-competitive, somewhat of a ‘grub’ and an antagonist on the field. He labels himself as a sore-loser – and those aren’t the words of someone who doesn’t care, or doesn’t ‘get it’.
And just like Reynonds, you can ask anyone who knows Luai off the field and they’ll tell you how wrong the commentariat are: he’s a top-tier guy who feels blessed to have the opportunity to play professional footy.
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Hating on footy players for being outspoken, awkwardly defensive or poorly-executing in their public messaging is not new. Ask Latrell Mitchell about it.
To those who are boisterously cheering or booing long after the full time siren, Luai is right, even though his persona needs a considerable adjustment. While there’s nothing that hurts more than a grand final or Origin series loss, there’s far more to life than just football and there are far more constructive things to do than to hang rubbish on players as a projection for your own failings in life.
That’s probably something that Queenslanders don’t get.
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Source:: ZeroTackle
