Maroons icon\u2019s shock Ponga call for Origin; \u2018lazy\u2019 moments from \u2018diabolical\u2019 Broncos called out<\/a><\/p>\nTallis responded that while Walker could light up the Origin arena in attack, his size presents a problem in defence. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a question mark with his size and coming up against the big back rowers,\u201d Tallis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NRL is a jungle and when it comes to State of Origin, it\u2019s just a meaner part of it. Every weakness in your game gets exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just a couple of years ago, Walker was considered the next man up by many whenever Daly Cherry-Evans decided to call time.<\/p>\n
As it turned out, Cherry-Evans was axed after the Maroons\u2019 Game I loss last season.<\/p>\n
Walker was sidelined with a knee injury so he wasn\u2019t in the frame for selection.<\/p>\n
Instead, coach Billy Slater named Dearden at seven to partner Cam Munster. It turned out to be a masterstroke, with the Cowboys gun named player of the series after leading Queensland to two straight wins to clinch another series for the Maroons.<\/p>\n
Now with Dearden out of action, Walker appeared to be the favourite, but Clifford\u2019s name has come from nowhere in recent days.<\/p>\n
Foxsports.com.au\u2019s Paul Crawley also thinks Walker deserves a crack<\/p>\n
\u201cSam has owned the big moments. He\u2019s been brought through the system, he\u2019s got the best short kicking game in the comp. The way the game\u2019s going at the moment with the rule changes, you would think he would be the walk-up starter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard Wayne Bennett say he\u2019s the closest thing to Alfie Langer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Interestingly, Walker, Clifford and Cherry-Evans will all battle it out at 5:30pm this Saturday in a final mouth-watering Origin audition when the Roosters take on the Cowboys at Magic Round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Walker has long been considered a Maroons halfback in waiting, but with Tom Dearden out of Origin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,11170,18194,57920,321579,4430,763,194287,28053,4518,4744,3512,761,762,158,11396,99980,14444,321578,16205,4478,85,1080,321580,11737,776,1651],"class_list":["post-666013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-billy-slater","tag-braith-anasta","tag-club-teammate","tag-cowboys-playmaker","tag-daly-cherry-evans","tag-fox-league","tag-halfback-spot","tag-jake-clifford","tag-jamal-fogarty","tag-kicking-game","tag-knee-injury","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-paul-crawley","tag-pecking-order","tag-question-mark","tag-roosters-halves-pairing","tag-rule-changes","tag-sam-walker","tag-sports","tag-sydney-roosters","tag-sydney-roosters-halves","tag-team-tips","tag-tom-dearden","tag-wayne-bennett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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