New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\nDespite leading the Brisbane Broncos to their first premiership last season since 2006 and singlehandedly destroying England during the 2025 Ashes Series, Waslh was unable to do enough to earn an Origin recall. <\/p>\n
To make matters more controversial, not only was he overlooked in favour of Kalyn Ponga for the No.1 jersey, but he has been left out of the 20-man squad entirely.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the side came out, I thought this can\u2019t be true that he would leave this kid out,\u201d veteran Code Sports journalist Dean Ritchie said on NRL 360.<\/p>\n
\u201cReece Walsh last year won that premiership almost singlehandedly. He goes into the Kangaroos Tour and slaughters England. He was the best player in the game. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was stunned that he couldn\u2019t find a position for him in his extended squad and as you rightly pointed out, Ezra Mam\u2019s there and Gehamat Shibasaki. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis kid is dynamite. He\u2019s box office and I\u2019m absolutely stunned that he isn\u2019t in that side somewhere.\u2019<\/p>\n
Following Ritchie\u2019s comments, Anasta questioned if it was a \u201cbrave call\u201d made by Slater to not include the reigning Clive Churchill Medallist.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s almost career-defining,\u201d Ritchie continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Billy gets this wrong and they go back to Reece Walsh in Game Two, one-nil down, I get the feeling that Queensland will be very agitated at the call. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a massive call.\u201d<\/p>\n
Billy talks through Game I squad | 16:01<\/p>\n
Responding to the comments made by Richie, co-host and former Origin representative Braith Anasta understood the decision made by the Maroons coach by comparing Walsh to the named, Kalyn Ponga.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can understand a little bit of an uproar and Reece Walsh fans being disappointed and shocked like Dean Ritchie,\u201d Anasta said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if you peel it back, the incumbent Ponga (is) in great form and his team the Newcastle Knights is probably the best improvers this season. <\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, Reece was a bit unlucky, injured before Origin, doesn\u2019t play (and) they win the series. <\/p>\n
\u201cAgain, he gets injured before this series and he didn\u2019t play great on the weekend. The ducks didn\u2019t line up for him. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got the individual X-factor but you\u2019ve got to trust Billy on this one.<\/p>\n
Gorden Tallis added, \u201cHe\u2019s just so important. The way he brings the ball back, he\u2019s got a great kicking game. I don\u2019t think he [Reece Walsh] can play 14\u2026There is not much between those two.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Billy Slater confirmed the Queensland Maroons squad on Monday morning, Reece Walsh\u2019s name was nowhere to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-678895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678895","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=678895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}