{"id":761662,"date":"2026-06-26T13:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/761662\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T13:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:59:11","slug":"major-boost-for-reece-walsh-as-queensland-champion-no-chance-to-play-state-of-origin-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/761662\/","title":{"rendered":"Major boost for Reece Walsh as Queensland champion ‘no chance’ to play State of Origin 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reece Walsh<\/a>\u2019s hopes of retaining his spot in the Queensland team for State of Origin 3<\/a> have received a boost after the Cowboys revealed Tom Dearden<\/a> is \u2018no chance\u2019 to be ready for the decider. Dearden was player of the series in Queensland\u2019s series triumph last year, but has been sidelined in 2026 by an ankle injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Cowboys halfback was originally targeting a return this weekend and potentially winning a spot in the Maroons\u2019 six-man bench for Origin 3. Sam Walker<\/a> has cemented the starting halfback role, but Dearden would have been a handy option to carry on the bench – potentially at the expense of Walsh.<\/p>\n

\"Reece<\/p>\n

Reece Walsh (R) will likely retain his spot after Tom Dearden (L) was ruled out of Origin 3. Image: Getty<\/p>\n

But the Cowboys medical team has now revealed that Dearden won\u2019t be back until Round 19 at the earliest, which is after Origin 3. Todd Payten recently revealed that initial scans failed to pick up a leg fracture separate to Dearden\u2019s syndesmosis injury, which delayed his potential return.<\/p>\n

The Cowboys\u2019 medicos Chris Ball and Steve Sartori – who are also part of the Queensland set-up – believe Dearden wouldn\u2019t be able to train fully if Billy Slater picked him in his squad. \u201cHe\u2019s no chance for Origin 3, that\u2019s what our doctors are saying,\u201d Cowboys football boss Micheal Luck told The Courier Mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/p>\n

Tom Dearden was player of the series in Queensland’s Origin triumph last year.<\/p>\n

(Darrian Traynor)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Maroons doctors are also our doctors and he\u2019s not doing any team training, he is still a little while away. Tom has only just started running again and Origin is 12 days away, so he is a bit behind in his recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he went into Maroons camp, he wouldn\u2019t even be running. He will start doing that stuff on the field with us next week and then it\u2019s a hope of getting him to play the following week for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a bye next week and then we play Manly the week after Origin 3. There\u2019s a chance he might play in that game, but there\u2019s a fair few boxes to tick between now and then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reece Walsh boost after Tom Dearden ruled out<\/p>\n

With Dearden not ready in time, Walsh has a golden opportunity to retain his spot on Slater\u2019s six-man bench. Walsh was overlooked for Origin 1<\/a>, but came in at the expense of Ezra Mam for Game 2. However Walsh was unused as the Maroons levelled the series with a 44-24 triumph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reece Walsh\u2019s hopes of retaining his spot in the Queensland team for State of Origin 3 have received…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,11170,701,13391,85,6405,34775,776],"class_list":["post-761662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-billy-slater","tag-queensland","tag-reece-walsh","tag-sports","tag-state-of-origin","tag-the-cowboys","tag-tom-dearden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761662","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=761662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}