A fired up Laurie Daley has hit back at his critics after NSW’s State of Origin series victory, slamming “personal” attacks aimed at him throughout the series.
Few pundits gave the Blues a chance in Game 3 but NSW claimed a dominant 30-12 victory at Suncorp Stadium, led by Nathan Cleary, to clinch the series win, becoming the fourth NSW team to win a series decider in Queensland.
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It’s a second series victory for Daley in his second stint as NSW coach after he was at the helm for the droughtbreaking win in 2014.
After taking over from Michael Maguire, the 56-year-old lost last year’s series and had his coaching acumen questioned by many commentators throughout this series, most notably for selections and the management of the interchange bench in Game 2.
A report emerged during the series linking Daley’s “sleepy” pre-game speeches to NSW’s slow starts in games, while others questioned whether his friendship with NSWRL CEO Dave Trodden played a part in his appointment as coach.
“I don’t mind any criticism about team selections or criticism any changes that you make. That’s all part of the game,” he said on Channel 9 post-game.
“But there’s times there when you think some things are quite personal. I just don’t think there’s a need to do that. I think that says a lot about the people that report that way.”
Speaking in his post-game press conference, an emotional and frustrated Daley hit out at personal attacks directed his way.
“No one likes criticism. I get that. You know it comes, so you’ve got to accept it and cop it. But there’s some parts of criticism that go way, way above others which I get really disappointed with,” Daley said.
“People that report like that need to have a hard look at themselves.”
“I’m a leader. There’s a difference between leader and coaching,” Daley said.
“You go and ask Billy: why does he have assistant coaches? Why do you have an assistant defence coach? Why do you have an assistant attack coach? Why? Tell me.
“You know what the coach does — the coach drives it. So it just frustrates me a lot.
“The coach sets the tone, the coach talks to his coaches about how they want to implement plans. Some of the stuff that’s been written and said, gee, come on.
“But anyway, hopefully those blokes might have a decent look at themselves.”
“It wasn’t about the last laugh,” Daley added.
“It was just about these blokes playing the best they possibly could. And in particular when people have a crack when they don’t even come to a training session, they won’t front up to press conferences. Show some balls. Where are they now?”
Asked if he would contact certain reporters to, Daley hit back: “Well, why should I?” before adding, “You know what, I’ll see. I’ll see.”
“I just think it was unnecessary. I think there were hidden agendas,” Daley added.
“Sometimes things are planted in the media too, so I’d love to know where that came from and you know how it all works.
“But when you’ve put a lot into a game and put a lot into trying to be the person you are, and people attack you from an angle that you go, ‘Wow’ … anyway, that’s probably my rant. But I hope it never happens to you one day.”
Daley said the negative commentary around his coaching filtered back to him and was difficult to ignore.
“People would say, ‘Oh mate, are you okay?’ and I go, ‘Yeah, why?’ I don’t like it but you accept it, but it’s other people that get affected by it as well when they go heavy,” he said.
“It is what it is and people write stories and do whatever they want but you’ve got to be held accountable to some of your stories too and I’ll read those stories and if things aren’t true I’ll call them out and then they can either explain that they made it up, they can explain where they got it from or they can hide behind someone gave it to me. So, I’ll see which one it is.”
Daley’s contract as NSW coach runs out at the end of this series, and while he hasn’t publicly announced his plans, he didn’t sound like a man who wanted to deal with the State of Origin circus again.
“I’ve made my mind. I know what I’m doing,” he said cryptically on Channel 9.
“I haven’t had a beer for nearly four months,” Daley said.
“So I’ll have a couple tonight — and it tastes nice too, by the way.”
Nathan Cleary said post-game: “A lot of people wrote him off and negative things were said about him, but he’s an absolute champion in NSW and we never write off champions.
“I love the guy and I’m so pumped for him.”