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Slater's gamble on rookie five-eighth Tom Dearden pays off

(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

Billy Slater gambled on Tom Dearden to debut in a State of Origin decider and the Queensland coach was rewarded for his bravery as the Maroons claimed a 22-12 win to clinch the series.

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Last Friday, Dearden was told he was going to be the man tasked with the unenviable challenge of replacing mercurial Queensland five-eighth Cameron Munster after the latter contracted COVID-19.

The big intrigue centred around where Dearden would play on Wednesday night at Suncorp Stadium.

Would he slot straight in for Munster or would Slater shift Ben Hunt to the halves and take the more conservative approach of blooding Dearden from the interchange?

Right up until announcing his team – an hour before kick-off – Slater was keeping a lid on Dearden’s role.

The coach put faith in the rookie to start the game alongside Daly Cherry-Evans in the halves and was richly repaid for backing the 21-year-old’s ability.

Dearden has been electric for North Queensland this season after rediscovering his groove following two difficult years at the Brisbane Broncos.

It was a club combination which first got the Maroons on the board when Dearden ran to the left and sent teammate Valentine Holmes over for the first try of the night.

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Hunt was the first to race over and congratulate Dearden as the little five-eighth punched the sky.

Dearden nearly doubled his tally of try assists when he sent Corey Oates in at the corner, only for referee Ashley Klein to pull the call back for a forward pass.

Any loose ball Dearden dived on and he was willing and able to dig deep into the NSW defensive line to open up space for his outside men.

Cherry-Evans still ran the show but Dearden was the man second to him in just about everything.

Dearden might be just 49 games into his NRL career but the North Queensland playmaker looked every bit an assured Origin player from the get-go.

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“It’s a dream come true,” said Dearden as he celebrated with family in the stands afterwards.

“I was pretty nervous running out.

“The coaching staff give you so much confidence going into the game. I knew exactly what my job was.”

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J
JW 25 minutes ago
Let's be real about these All Blacks

I didn't really get the should tone from it, but maybe because I was just reading it as my own thoughts.


What I read it as was examples of how they played well enough in every game to be able to win it.


Yeah I dunno if Ben wouldn't see it that way (someone else would for sure need to point it out to him though), I'm more in the Ben not appreciating that those close losses werent one off scenarios camp. Sure you can look at dubious decisions causing them to have to play with 14 or 13 men at the death as viable reasons but even in the games they won without such difficulties they made a real struggle of it (compared to how good some of their first half play was). This kind of article where you trying to point out the 3 losses really would most likely have been wins only really makes sense/works when your other performances make those 3 games (or endings) stand out.


There might have been a sentence here and there to ensure some good comment numbers but when he's signing off the article by saying things like ..

Whilst these All Blacks aren’t blowing teams off the park like during the 2010s, they are nuggety and resourceful and don’t wilt. They are prepared to win the hard way, accumulating points by any means necessary.

and..

The other top sides in the world struggled to put them away. France and South Africa both could have well been defeated on home soil.

I don't really see it. Always making sure people are upto date with the SH standing/perspective! NZ went through some tough times with so many different perspectives and reasons why, but then it was.. amusing how.. behind everyone was once they turned a corner. More of these 'unfortunate' results returned against SA and France at the start of the RWC which made it extra tasty to catch other teams out when they did bring it. So that created some 'conscious' perspective that I just kept going and sharing re thoughts on similar predicaments of other teams, I had been really confident that Wallabies displays vs NZ were real, that the Argentines can backup their thing against Aus and SA (and so obviously the rest), and current one is that England are actually consistent and improving with their attack (which everyone should get onboard with), and I'm expecting a more dominant display against Japan (even though they should have more of their experienced internationals for this one) that highlights further growth from July. 👍

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