{"id":707829,"date":"2026-06-01T07:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T07:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/707829\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T07:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T07:46:13","slug":"state-of-origin-2026-josh-reynolds-passionately-defends-laurie-daley-as-nsw-blues-coach-latest-origin-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/707829\/","title":{"rendered":"State of Origin 2026: Josh Reynolds passionately defends Laurie Daley as NSW Blues coach, latest Origin news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Blues five-eighth Josh Reynolds has come to the defence of Laurie Daley, taking aim at critics who have \u201chad a crack\u201d at the NSW coach.<\/p>\n

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Daley was under enormous pressure entering this year\u2019s series and while the Blues may have escaped with victory in Game 1, it hasn\u2019t shielded him from scrutiny.<\/p>\n

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In fact, the prevailing narrative to come from the thrilling series opener is that NSW was fortunate to have been spared an embarrassing loss with the Kalyn Ponga send-off proving a decisive moment.<\/p>\n

Reynolds, however, believes Blues fans need to give Daley more credit and pointed towards one selection \u201cmasterstroke\u201d that he says is similar to one Billy Slater pulled off last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sick and tired… that\u2019s the one thing I can\u2019t stand about us New South Welshmen and women, that we\u2019re just into each other. We constantly are into it,\u201d Reynolds said on The Big Sports Breakfast<\/a> on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what I always say as well… we pick the side and for two days, all right, have you say, have your say for two days of who you think should have been in and why they got it wrong and this and that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut as soon as we\u2019re in camp and in that week, let\u2019s just get behind our team, no matter who is in.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Daley\u2019s coaching credentials have come under the microscope in the past two years, Reynolds went on to add that he believes the NSW coach deserves more respect for what he achieved during his playing career as a Blues representative.<\/p>\n

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Debate over Strange or Moses in Origin 2 | 02:32<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what it is, but what people have got to understand is as well … is if you don\u2019t really know the proper Loz like we do, and you want to have a crack at him, I would love for you to get to know him properly and the passion he\u2019s got for that New South Wales team and jersey,\u201d Reynolds said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd just a reminder, I understand, say what you want about Loz as a coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave a look back and see what he did in the New South Wales jersey as a player. If not the best New South Wales player ever. He should be able to do whatever he wants, pick a team, this or that, and still have the respect of the people.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s madness that we turn on him and each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Reynolds called on Blues supporters to give Daley credit in the wake of Game 1.<\/p>\n

Specifically, he pointed to the make-up of NSW\u2019s bench as an example of where Daley had the edge over Slater and questioned why the Blues coach wasn\u2019t seeing much praise for that decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone was into our bench. Who won us the game on the weekend on Wednesday? It was our bench,\u201d Reynolds said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one\u2019s saying, \u2018Oh, it was a masterstroke\u2019… last year when Billy had Cobbo on the bench (for the Suaalii send off) everyone said, \u2018why would you?\u2019. It was a masterstroke that Cobbo came on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy isn\u2019t this a masterstroke that Loz picked a small bench and we won the game off the back of it?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Blues five-eighth Josh Reynolds has come to the defence of Laurie Daley, taking aim at critics who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-707829","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\/707829","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=707829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}