{"id":723929,"date":"2026-06-08T22:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T22:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/723929\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T22:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T22:50:14","slug":"state-of-origin-2026-nsw-blues-squad-opinion-paul-gallen-comments-liam-martin-fitness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/723929\/","title":{"rendered":"State of Origin 2026 | NSW Blues squad opinion; Paul Gallen comments; Liam Martin fitness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NSW Blues<\/a> captain Paul Gallen<\/a> has revealed the one decision that \u201csurprised\u201d him after Laurie Daley<\/a> named his squad for game two<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Daley will have a relatively unchanged forward pack going into the MCG fixture next Wednesday, with Jacob Saifiti – who didn\u2019t play off the bench in Origin I – dropped due to the return of Payne Haas<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Paul Gallen on 100% Footy.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

Liam Martin missed out on Origin I due to injury but played 80 minutes for Penrith<\/a> at the weekend against the Tigers. That wasn\u2019t enough to earn him a recall, much to Gallen\u2019s curiosity. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m surprised Liam Martin hasn\u2019t been picked, he\u2019s been back for a couple of weeks now and in my opinion is probably the game\u2019s best back-rower and has been for a number of years,\u201d he said on Nine\u2019s 100% Footy.<\/p>\n

\u201c… I\u2019m shocked Liam Martin isn\u2019t in the side, I thought he would\u2019ve been picked for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the panel, Gallen and Andrew Johns both said Casey McLean should also be in the starting side. Even Maroons selector Darren Lockyer<\/a> agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realise how big he was and how mobile he is,\u201d Lockyer said of McLean. <\/p>\n

The Maroons great added he\u2019d have Mitch Moses on the bench and Ethan Strange remain in the halves, with Cameron Murray at lock and Isaah Yeo playing prop. <\/p>\n

Daley, over an hour after naming his squad, was hit by news that Stephen Crichton<\/a> won\u2019t be fit enough to play Origin II. <\/p>\n

Gallen, before learning about Crichton\u2019s injury, already wanted McLean on the wing with Tolu Koula at centre. <\/p>\n

\"Payne<\/p>\n

Isaah Yeo and Liam Martin previously playing for NSW. \u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a do-or-die match, we need to win this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not need to be going up to Suncorp in a decider. We\u2019ve only won two or three games in history up there for the decider so we want to win down in Melbourne to sew this up and we need to pick our best team possible. For me that\u2019s McLean on the wing and Koula in the centres.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NSW Blues captain Paul Gallen has revealed the one decision that \u201csurprised\u201d him after Laurie Daley named…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-723929","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\/723929","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=723929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}