Pick and stick: Thaiday urges Maroons to shun recent trend of changes

Queensland great Sam Thaiday has urged Billy Slater to stick solid with his team for Origin III, despite stats showing the Maroons have made more changes in deciders than NSW in recent years.

There’s a widespread belief that Queensland "pick and stick" with Origin selections, but data shows that in only two Origin deciders since 2008 - in 2013 and 2014 - have the Maroons made less changes than the Blues.

Having been in the MCG dressing shed at halftime in Game Two, with Queensland trailing 34-0, Thaiday is confident his former Origin and Test teammate will stick solid for the series decider at Suncorp Stadium.

“I don't think there's merit in changing too much when it comes to a losing game,” Thaiday told NRL.com.

“There's things that you can fix within the team, your defensive structures, your attacking structures.

“And even just looking at the game and, and how it panned out you, it's definitely hard to come back from six penalties and four [repeat sets].

"You're chasing your tail from that point on, and the Queenslanders were absolutely rattled, shell shocked and happy for the halftime whistle to be blown.

“Just through a halftime speech, they came out of a different team in the second half. So, I don't think Billy will be making huge changes.

“I think he'll stick with players that have done it before or players that have shown some great Queensland values week in and week out for their team.”

Despite making 24 changes compared to 13 by the Blues in the past eight deciders, Queensland triumphed in all except 2019 so, pick or stick, they’ll still head to Suncorp as favourites on July 17.

The ‘pick and stick’ policy was built by coach Mal Meninga in Queensland’s dynasty era, where they won eight consecutive series between 2006 and 2013.

Lifting the State of Origin Shield in seven of those victories, Thaiday believes squad consistency was a driving factor in their success.

“The thing with Origin is it's only such a short preparation for what is such a big game,” Thaiday told NRL.com.

“You’re in camp for 10 days and those combinations really help out and I think the beauty of what we did for such a long period of time and those Queensland squads which I was a part of was the consistency of players.

“From a player's point of view, the pick and stick mentality, we were happy that Mal and the selectors did that for such a long period of time and they had the faith in us to get out there and do the job.

“We would walk into the camp on a Sunday night and we would hit the ground running on Monday, because we all knew each other so I think it definitely helps in getting the result at the end of the day.”

In the same era, New South Wales struggled with squad consistency and nailing down a spine, which is evident particularly from 2008 to 2011 where the Blues made 46 changes across the four series and Queensland just 16.

"It almost felt like NSW were at panic stations when it came to selecting their team," Thaiday said.

"I think the biggest ones that we noticed as Queenslanders was the combinations would change from game to game, from series to series, and they're probably two of the most important picks of your team.

“We talk about the spine players now, your 7, 6, 9 and 1, the guys that steer the team around. You can have your game breaking players out in the centres or your barnstorming front rowers.

“But they're the guys that win you the games at the end of the day and we would sit back and see the massive changes that they would go through.

"It was definitely noticeable from our side of things, but we were just business as usual. We would come into camp and a lot of times our changes were not in those key positions which really helped us with the success that we had.”