{"id":707905,"date":"2026-06-01T08:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T08:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/707905\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T08:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T08:44:11","slug":"state-of-origin-news-2026-josh-reynolds-defends-nsw-coach-laurie-daley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/707905\/","title":{"rendered":"State of Origin news 2026: Josh Reynolds defends NSW coach Laurie Daley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NSW star Josh Reynolds<\/a> has leapt to the defence of Laurie Daley<\/a>, hitting out at critics and the \u201cmadness\u201d surrounding the coach. <\/p>\n

After losing the State of Origin<\/a> series last year, the knives were already out for Daley prior to game one last Wednesday night. <\/p>\n

\"NSW<\/p>\n

Laurie Daley has copped plenty of criticism. \u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Those same knives were undoubtedly being sharpened when the Blues went down 20-0 in the first half, only to produce a remarkable second-half comeback after Queensland fullback Kalyn Ponga was sent off<\/a> to win 22-20.<\/p>\n

The extenuating circumstances of the win haven\u2019t quietened the noise around Daley, with many still questioning his coaching and tactics.<\/p>\n

But the coach does have one key ally in Reynolds, who played in the successful 2014 series under Daley and delivered a passionate defence of him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sick and tired,\u201d Reynolds said on Sky Sports Radio\u2019s Big Sports Breakfast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what I always say as well – we pick the side and for two days, all right, have your say of who you think should have been in and why they got it wrong – but as soon as we\u2019re in camp and in that week, let\u2019s just get behind our team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat 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 NSW team and jersey.<\/p>\n

\u201cSay what you want about Loz as a coach, but have a look back and see what he did in the NSW jersey as a player. 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

\u201cIt\u2019s madness that we turn on him and each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reynolds – who played four games for the Blues – also pointed to Daley\u2019s bench selection, which received plenty of backlash, as a reason for the win.<\/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

\u201cLoz picked a small bench and we won the game off the back of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daley will have some major selection calls to make before game two, with young gun Ethan Strange impressing in his Origin debut<\/a> and the man he replaced, Mitchell Moses<\/a>, expected to be fit to return from a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n

Stephen Crichton is also under pressure to retain his spot at centre, while Jacob Saifiti didn\u2019t get on the field in the series opener. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NSW star Josh Reynolds has leapt to the defence of Laurie Daley, hitting out at critics and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-707905","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\/707905","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=707905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}