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Queenslander
15-10-06, 09:37 AM
Big Mal's new Origin plan
By Michael Westlake and Greg Davis
October 15, 2006 12:00am

QUEENSLAND'S successful State of Origin "mentoring" scheme will be ramped up under Mal Meninga's strategy to return the Maroons to interstate dominance.

After this season delivering Queensland its first series win since 2001, Meninga on Friday was handed an unprecedented two-year deal with a one-year option to stay on as Maroons coach.

In a bold move, the Queensland Rugby League made Meninga its first on-salary coach, allowing the former Maroons captain to juggle his business interests with Meninga Fruit, Strathfield and Cavalier with Origin duties.

Meninga has devised a strategy for Queensland to succeed at Origin level in the long and short term.

Part of that will be an increased involvement from former Queensland players, who will offer coaching and guidance to players.

Meninga introduced the system this year, bringing in famous names such as Allan Langer, Trevor Gillmeister, Kerry Boustead and Gene Miles to keep in contact with Queensland players through the season and monitor their performance.

"That will definitely be happening again, but I think we can do it better," Meninga said.

"I would like to see the mentors engaged in a bit more face-to-face contact next year.

"Obviously the contact that they had over the phone this year was beneficial. But I would like to see the older blokes, when they are available, attend more games and deal with the players personally.

"We will need to get permission from the clubs, but I would like to see the mentors going to games and training and helping them out there.

"That will help us more with emerging players, and also give me more feedback about how those blokes are going."

Meninga outlined his Origin blueprint to The Sunday Mail, which included:

* Retention of off-field staff: "All the people that contributed to the (2006) performance need to be rewarded too, and the new QRL deal allows us to do that. They need to be adequately compensated for the time they have to spend away from their normal jobs to contribute for Queensland. It was a special time, and everybody brought something to the camp.

"I would suggest all of our off-field staff deserve to be reinstated."

* Succession planning: "We can't just rest on the players currently in the side. We introduced a number of new players in to the system this year, which I think was really important.

"It brought a freshness to it all. The younger players really brought some enthusiasm to the series. That will apply to staff as well."

* Better induction process: "Even though they might not be selected in the state side, we can give younger players the opportunity to mix with senior players. It is really important that they mix on a more regular basis and become familiar with everyone, so coming into camp when they are selected is not such an overawing occasion."

Meanwhile, NSWRL boss Geoff Carr says Graham Murray's future as Blues coach is in the hands of the North Queensland board.

The NSWRL board will appoint the Blues coach for next year's interstate series at its annual general meeting in December.

Carr said Murray would be strongly considered to take the reins again despite Queensland's win in this year's series, but only if the North Queensland club gave him the all-clear.

Cowboys CEO Peter Parr said he had recently discussed the Origin coaching issue with Murray and would report back to the Cowboys' board at the next meeting of the North Queensland powerbrokers.

The fact that new assistant Ian Millward and conditioning coach Glen Murphy would not be involved in the series would lessen the impact if Murray coached the Blues again.

"There was a lot of discussion about how we went through a rough trot during the Origin series when Graham wasn't with the team," Parr said.

"However, its important to remember that we were missing our best players at the same time, along with key members of our coaching staff."

The Sunday Mail

Capital_Shark
16-10-06, 03:39 PM
This is good stuff and I think the future of Origin for both camps is getting a coach that doesn't have responsibilities with an NRL team throughout the rest of the year.

The fact that Mal has something long term confirms my beliefes that QLD will be dominant for a while yet. It also means we'll be less likely to run into problems when blokes like Lockyer hang up the boots due to bringing in young blokes and people focusing beyond the current year at hand.

Darren Lockyer
18-10-06, 03:55 PM
good stuf by him