Blues coach Brad Fittler has hit out at former New South Wales players who’ve been critical of his State of Origin camp.
But Ryan Girdler, who played with Fittler in Blues sides in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has fired back at the embattled NSW mentor, who lost his second consecutive Origin series this year.
“I find ex-players of New South Wales aren’t always generous with their opinions and their intentions,” Fittler told ABC Grandstand.
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“I find that really crude and strange.
“I don’t think you’d ever see that in Queensland.”
Girdler said former NSW players trod “a fine line”.
“Regardless of what comes across on the media, or what we say as pundits, once I get to that game, I’m all in. I just want the best for New South Wales,” Girdler told Triple M.
“Sometimes I feel like an ex-player and a pundit — you can just give some different perspective to something that mightn’t be able to be understood from in those four walls.
“Obviously Freddy might’ve taken some of the things that I’ve said over the last month in a negative fashion, but it was never meant to be negative.
“I’m sure if Freddy thought I was in some way destabilising the environment he’d ring me to let me know because he knows me well enough to know that certainly wasn’t my intention.
“But I just saw some things come out of the camp that didn’t resonate with me, so I spoke about it.
“It is my job and I take my job pretty seriously.”
Former Bulldogs and Dragons enforcer James Graham defended Girdler.
“The team selections, especially in games two and three, did raise a lot of eyebrows, and it’d be wrong not to be speaking about them and questioning whether it was the right selection,” said the former England international on Triple M.
“The fallout from game one and Nicho Hynes only getting 11 minutes and then what happened with (Stefano) Utoikamanu and then the decision in game three to go with two hookers but (Clint) Gutherson, as well…
“These conversations were being had in the living rooms, in the WhatsApp groups, in the pubs, in the cafes all across New South Wales about, ‘What’s going on here?’.”
In game one at Adelaide Oval, Fittler didn’t inject Hynes into the match until Tom Trbojevic left the field for a head injury assessment in the 69th minute.
In the lead-up to game three at Sydney Olympic Park, Utoikamanu revealed that Fittler had phoned him to say he would be “rested” for the finale, despite having only played 12 minutes in game two at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium.
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And Fittler also raised eyebrows with his selection for game three by picking two hookers, Damien Cook and Reece Robson, as well as Gutherson, at the expense of having another front-rower.
Fittler only substituted Gutherson into the match with three minutes left on the clock.
“We try to give an opinion, and OK, ex-New South Wales players do support their state undoubtedly … but you can’t deny that these selections and tactics were going to cause debate,” Graham said on Triple M.
Fittler’s NSWRL contract expired at the completion of this year’s series, but a call is yet to be made on his Blues coaching future.
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