has confirmed five changes <\/a>for Game II of the 2026 State of Origin series in Melbourne next week. Among them, Stephen Crichton misses selection with injury to make way for Casey McLean in the centres, with Nawaqanitawase parachuted in as 19th man in place of McLean.<\/p>\nDaley revealed he had to get creative in sourcing Nawaqanitawase\u2019s phone number during a press conference on Tuesday. He said Nawaqanitawase clearly wasn\u2019t expecting a call from Daley, given the \u201cshy\u201d response.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke to Mark, it would have been about 8pm last night,\u201d Daley recalled. \u201cIt was unexpected, I had to get his number of Matty King [Blues assistant], and I had to ring him. I don\u2019t know why he answered but it was a shy answer, one of thoses ones where \u2018hello?\u2019 – not sure who was on the other end. <\/p>\n
\u201cI relayed the message and he was very excited. They\u2019re always good phone calls to have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nawaqanitawase, 25, will depart the NRL at season\u2019s end bound for Japanese rugby, where he is ultimately plotting a place in Australia\u2019s World Cup side next year.<\/p>\n
Moses & Nawaqanitawase in for the Blues! | 10:38<\/p>\n
Nawaqanitawase will play rugby union for the Saitama Wild Knights later this year. He has 11 previous rugby union caps for the Wallabies, and has also represented his country in rugby league.<\/p>\n
The game two call-up marks Nawaqanitawase\u2019s Origin debut.<\/p>\n
\u201cMark played for Australia last year, he\u2019s got a good rapport with the guys and I know how much he wants to play for NSW. It was an easy decision for us,\u201d said Daley.<\/p>\n
Daley was busy on the phone on Monday night, having named its official Blues line-up for game two on Monday morning.<\/p>\n
He revealed a separate phone call last night influenced his decision not to name Blues stalwart Stephen Crichton in the centres \u2013 a move which ultimately led to Nawaqanitawase\u2019s debut.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke to Critta at 7pm last night. He\u2019s been carrying an injury and he\u2019s a bit banged up. He wouldn\u2019t be able to do contact, which is a concern obviously,\u201d Daley said.<\/p>\n
Daley confirmed he had \u201cno hesitation\u201d in naming Penrith centre Casey McLean in Crichton\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Casey did in game one was terrific. He was thrust in, and to handle it the way he did was pretty special.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blues coach Laurie Daley has shed light on the \u201cunexpected\u201d call-up of Sydney Roosters flyer Mark Nawaqanitawase for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,689,4438,350850,350853,172329,6406,12412,647,350852,22326,350849,761,762,158,677,27951,668,159,350851,85,4546,1080,660],"class_list":["post-724328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-casey-mclean","tag-club-connection","tag-garbage-collector","tag-japanese-rugby","tag-laurie-daley","tag-matt-king","tag-melbourne","tag-misses-selection","tag-mitchell-moses","tag-moses-nawaqanitawase","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-oceania","tag-phone-number","tag-press-conference","tag-rugby-league","tag-rugby-union-bound","tag-sports","tag-stephen-crichton","tag-sydney-roosters","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724328","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=724328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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