{"id":752573,"date":"2026-06-22T09:30:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T09:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/752573\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T09:30:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T09:30:25","slug":"state-of-origin-news-2026-queensland-coach-billy-slater-explains-max-plath-halves-decision-cameron-munster-hia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/752573\/","title":{"rendered":"State of Origin news 2026: Queensland coach Billy Slater explains Max Plath halves decision, Cameron Munster HIA"},"content":{"rendered":"

The genius of Billy Slater<\/a> was on full-display last week in State of Origin<\/a> and now the Queensland<\/a> coach has explained how one crucial decision came to fruition.<\/p>\n

Slater has cemented himself as one of the game\u2019s most astute coaches in recent years, despite never having led an NRL<\/a> side before taking over the Maroons.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Billy Slater has become an outstanding coach.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

The champion fullback has already lifted the Origin shield three times as a coach in four series and is closing in on making it four from five.<\/p>\n

However, the 2026 campaign hasn\u2019t come without moments of adversity, from losing Tom Dearden due to injury<\/a> and bringing Sam Walker<\/a> in at halfback, before star forward Patrick Carrigan went down<\/a> in between games one and two.<\/p>\n

In last Wednesday night\u2019s clash at the MCG, a mid-game spanner in the works threatened to derail the Maroons, before a selection masterclass saved the day.<\/p>\n

With five-eighth Cameron Munster<\/a> forced off for a HIA, most saw the only logical replacement on Queensland\u2019s six-man bench being Reece Walsh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instead, the Maroons coach opted to insert tough forward utility Max Plath<\/a> into the playmaking role with 12 minutes to play until half time. <\/p>\n

Munster returned for the second half and Slater avoided wasting a substitute, with the bold move applauded by experts and fans alike.<\/p>\n

The coach has now explained what went into the Plath decision and the two-hour conversation with assistant coach Johnathan Thurston<\/a> that cemented it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably started throughout the week – I was talking to Ben Te\u2019o about Max Plath and he mentioned he played in the halves as a young fella growing up,\u201d he said on Nine\u2019s The Billy Slater Podcast<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI actually called Johnathan Thurston the day of the game in the afternoon. He came up to my room and we sat down for a good couple of hours and we went over all our contingencies again and this was one we spoke about. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt just happened to come to fruition and we had to make that play. Reece was an option, but if we injected Reece at that time and then come off at half time … that would have reduced us to using all our four interchanges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk about soft contingencies and hard contingencies and obviously we had Reece there as the back-up for our halves on the bench, but given the fact that it was 12 minutes before half-time and we were pretty confident that Cameron Munster was gonna come back, we wanted to give that a bit of an opportunity. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you inject that extra player from the bench, someone else misses out or you might leave yourself a bit short later. We wanted to go with a soft contingency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plath ended up reverting back to a middle-forward role when Munster returned to the field, while Walsh never went on despite an incredible moment on the headset with Slater that got the Melbourne crowd rocking<\/a> with anticipation. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Max Plath has been strong in his first two Origin matches.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

The extreme preparation shown by Slater and his coaching staff paid off on the biggest stage, but the Storm legend also admitted he had to weigh up the risk and reward of letting Plath in on the contingency plan before kick off.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a wonderful player Max Plath – he\u2019s got great movements, he\u2019s a good defender and he never lets anyone down when he\u2019s out on the field,\u201d Slater said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had great confidence in him and we knew we would lose a bit with our attack, but we were willing to sacrifice and make sure our priority was our defence. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou put the time and thought in and it doesn\u2019t always go your way – but if you do put the time in, it makes those decisions a little bit more clear and fluent.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, we only locked that contingency in on the afternoon of the game. I actually got to the game, we were in the sheds and we were walking around and I was actually contemplating whether I\u2019d bring it up with Max or not. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to try and give the players the best opportunity to be in the best headspace possible and floating something like this, that may never happen, to someone that is playing their second State of Origin, there\u2019s a risk involved in that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did think about that, but I also know the maturity of Max Plath and the professional that he is and I actually thought I needed to have a conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the only thing that I spoke to Max about before the game and he was like \u2018yep no worries, I can do that if needed\u2019 and then we moved on. <\/p>\n

\u201cSurely enough, it happened and I was glad I had that conversation.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The genius of Billy Slater was on full-display last week in State of Origin and now the Queensland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-752573","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\/752573","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=752573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}