Skipper a casualty as ‘embarrassing’ night for NSW forces shake-up

New South Wales need to look at making wholesale changes - including dropping skipper Isaah Yeo - if they are to have any chance of salvaging the Origin series in Brisbane in three weeks.

The Blues got what they deserved last night in the humiliating 44-24 loss to the rampaging Maroons.

Gifted the first two tries and a 12-2 lead, the Blues still never looked like winners.

Coach Laurie Daley picked injured players that resulted in a disrupted camp, went with a clearly struggling Mitchell Moses ahead of game one hero Ethan Strange and again totally ignored the best prop in the NRL on form, Warriors iron man Jackson Ford.

The Maroons have a massive mismatch in the key hooking role, with Harry Grant creative and fast out of dummy half and Reece Robson unable to match him.

Api Kororisau, a player who does have spark around the ruck, was on the bench… but didn’t get on the field.

But the biggest call Daley has to make is to relegate a struggling Isaah Yeo to the bench and starting with Souths’ lively Cameron Murray.

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The precedent has been set many years ago when Knights utility Kurt Gidley captained the Blues from the bench.

Murray was clearly the best of the Blues’ bench forwards but didn’t see enough game time to make a difference. 

Yeo looks to have lost a yard of pace over the past 12 months and while he can get away with that in a red-hot Panthers side, Queensland just ate him up.

There seemed a total lack of a game plan and you have to wonder what the Blues were doing for the past week.

Payne Haas’ return was touted as being the difference but he had one of the quietest games of his career. Still, he must be persisted with.

Moses was barely sighted and is one of several players that has to go.

Kotoni Staggs made some terrible decisions in both attack and defence - as well as being sin binned and can’t be allowed near game three.

If Latrell Mitchell is fit, he will replace Staggs and give us a glimmer of hope with his mere presence.

The Blues bench gave nothing - but what could Addin Fonua-Blake do with just EIGHT minutes of game time. 

Every Blues fan already knows what will happen in game three at a hostile Suncorp Stadium and the old saying looks like it really is true… New South Wales just don’t get Origin after one of their most embarrassing nights in history.