New South Wales coach Brad Fittler played a straight bat to questions over a potential late team switch for Origin II.
Eagle-eyed viewers noticed the Blues wingers had switched sides during training sessions leading up to Wednesday’s crunch clash at Suncorp Stadium.
The suggestion is Josh Addo-Carr will play on NSW’s left wing, putting him directly against towering Queensland flyer Xavier Coates.
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Coates – who is replacing the injured Selwyn Cobbo in the Maroons team – has a freakish ability to leap high in the air and take AFL-like grabs.
The Blues are hoping to negate Daly Cherry-Evans planting kicks on the head of shorter winger Brian To’o, who would no doubt struggle to match Coates in the air.
Fittler was asked about the switch at his press conference on Tuesday.
“I don’t know anything about it,” he replied with a straight face, before moving to the next question.
Queensland coach Billy Slater also had no comment when asked about the NSW switch.
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“That’s speculation, we’re not too worried about that,” Slater said.
“We just want to play to our strengths.”
Coates has played six Origin games for Queensland to date and has only scored two tries. Both times he was marked by tall Blues winger Daniel Tupou.
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The NSW camp has already been rocked by the withdrawal of superstar centre Latrell Mitchell for the second game in a row.
Fittler, though, confirmed forwards Cameron Murray and Liam Martin will play after overcoming injuries.
The coach is desperate to reverse the fortunes from game one, where the Blues let a lead slip and leaked two late tries to lose to the Maroons.
“If anything in the first game I thought we relaxed. We were in a really good position and then we relaxed, and I don’t know why,” Fittler said.
“We can’t have any of that.
“It burns me… it was a bit embarrassing towards the end. Sometimes embarrassment is a pretty good motivator.”
The Blues and Maroons have their final training runs on Tuesday before Wednesday’s clash in Brisbane.
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