Niggly Blues may play footy: Meninga - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Niggly Blues may play footy: Meninga

06/07/2010 02:20:01 PM Comments (0)

Queensland coach Mal Meninga turned up the heat on NSW with a jibe about their "niggling tactics" after arriving in Sydney for Wednesday's final State of Origin match.

While the ANZ Stadium match is a dead rubber after Queensland easily won the first two games of the series, Meninga's slightly testy responses to media at Sydney airport showed how keen they were to complete a clean sweep.

"I would think all those niggling tactics to try to put us off our game in games one and two hasn't worked for them," Meninga told reporters at Sydney airport.

"I imagine they would want to come out and play a bit of rugby league this time and try and get some forward ascendancy."

Meninga did not want to talk about suggestions from the Maroons training camp this week that his players wanted to square up for some incidents they'd looked at from game 2 in Brisbane.

"There's no resentment from the Qld players," said Meninga.

"They (NSW) play the way they play and we've got a job to finish tomorrow night."

Nor was he concerned by a newspaper story on Tuesday reporting that Queensland had come out on the better side of the penalty count in seven of the last eight Origin matches handled by senior referee Tony Archer who will be in action again on Wednesday.

"Origin is a lot different to NRL when you talk about refereeing and the referees have let it flow really really well," said Meninga.

"I think the refs have done a fantastic job."

"We could criticise a lot of the decisions made by the two men but we accept them and get on with the game."

Asked if Blues coach Craig Bellamy needed to tighten his team's discipline, Meninga said: "That's a matter for Craig to deal with, not for me to comment on.

"All I know is our discipline has been good. That's all I worry about."

It'll be the last Origin match for maroons backline star Israel Folau before he takes up his contract with AFL franchise Greater Western Sydney next year.

"We don't need Izzy's last game to motivate us but it would be nice to send him out on a high," said Meninga.

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