Mitchell Moses was ruled out of Wednesday night’s State of Origin opener with a shock injury, and the fallout has pushed Nathan Cleary into carrying almost the entire NSW kicking load.
That is a heavy ask for the Blues’ halfback, especially when Queensland can lean on a spine full of players who handle general play kicking duties at club level. Cameron Munster, Sam Walker, Kalyn Ponga and Harry Grant all regularly take on that work, while James Tedesco rarely kicks for the Roosters and Reece Robson is not a genuine long-kicking threat. NSW does not have the same luxury, and the loss of Moses has made the gap impossible to ignore.
Cleary has long been the man most expected to direct NSW, but the burden now looks more concentrated than ever. The Penrith halfback, known as the Ice Man, has the control and distance to manage a game, yet opposition attention is already built around shutting him down. The Bulldogs showed exactly how to do it in round six, producing a masterclass in pressure and rushing after him all night from both the inside and the outside.
That matters because the Blues cannot simply spread the responsibility and hope someone else will pick it up. Ethan Strange is viewed largely as a back-up option for the Raiders’ game management, and his strength is his running game rather than the sort of calm, repeatable kicking needed in Origin. In his most recent clash against Cleary’s Panthers, Strange finished with two kicks for 33 metres. In the same match, Ethan Sanders had 21 kicks for 660m, a reminder of how much kicking volume can shape field position when one side can share the load and the other cannot.
Strange’s name has surfaced because NSW needs answers fast, but the numbers underline the problem rather than solve it. He is not being asked to replace Moses as a like-for-like organiser, and nothing in his club form suggests he is ready to absorb a full directing role. That leaves Cleary exposed to the kind of suffocating treatment the Bulldogs used in round six, with Queensland set up to keep forcing the issue and the Blues short of proven options beyond their No. 7.
The first judgment is simple: without Moses, NSW have made Wednesday night much harder on themselves. If the Blues are going to stay alive in the contest, Cleary will have to beat pressure that has already worked against him once, and he may have to do it with far less help than his opposite numbers receive on the other side.
