{"id":467624,"date":"2026-06-09T01:02:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T01:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/467624\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T01:02:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T01:02:17","slug":"blues-forced-into-immediate-change-hours-after-naming-squad-for-origin-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/467624\/","title":{"rendered":"Blues forced into immediate change hours after naming squad for Origin 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NSW Blues<\/a> have been forced into a change less than two hours after naming their squad for Game 2 of the State of Origin<\/a> series, with Stephen Crichton<\/a> reportedly ruled out of the game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.<\/p>\n

Crichton, who has been under a fitness cloud for much of the year, played in Game 1, but struggled with his ball handling.<\/p>\n

Despite that, and the form of the Canterbury Bulldogs<\/a>, he was retained for Game 2 when head coach Laurie Daley<\/a> announced a 21-man squad in alphabetical order on Monday evening.<\/p>\n

Crichton played for the Bulldogs in the final game of the round which finished just an hour before that squad was announced.<\/p>\n

View both State of Origin Game 2 teams here<\/a><\/p>\n

It has now been revealed by Channel Nine’s Danny Weidler that his shoulder isn’t good enough to train this week, and he will be ruled out of Game 2 as a result.<\/p>\n

It’s understood Sydney Roosters<\/a> star Mark Nawaqanitawase<\/a>, himself having only recently returned from a syndesmosis injury, will be called into camp, with Casey McLean<\/a> likely to start.<\/p>\n

McLean was named on the six-man bench in Game 1, and came onto the field with 20 minutes to go, doing a sterling job for the Blues<\/a> after they lost Tolutau Koula<\/a> to a concussion in the same play Kalyn Ponga<\/a> was sent off.<\/p>\n

McLean’s performance asked the question whether he should have been starting for Game 2, but it now appears he will.<\/p>\n

The Blues<\/a> have other questions to answer around their starting side, with Payne Haas<\/a> returning, and Mitchell Moses<\/a> being named despite not being fit enough to play with the Eels on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NSW Blues have been forced into a change less than two hours after naming their squad for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-467624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}