Laurie Daley Hopes To Name The First Unchanged NSW Team In 20 Years

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Laurie Daley faces a nervous wait through the NRL round as he hopes to name the first unchanged NSW State of Origin team in 20 years.

Despite wingers Tom Trbojevic and Josh Mansour returning to action after injury, Daley is on Monday set to announce the same line-up that routed Queensland 28-4 in the series opener in Brisbane last week.

Not since the 1996 Blues became the first Origin team in history to go through an entire Origin series unchanged have all 17 players returned in back-to-back matches.

"It'd just be so much easier for your preparation when you don't have to blood new guys or guys that haven't been in the system," Daley said at the Nations of Origin launch on Wednesday.

"You can come into camp and everyone's on the same page right from day one, and basically you've had a 10-day preparation before they already get there.

"It makes so much of a difference if you're constantly changing and constantly working for different combinations, it takes you a while to get used to it.

"You see that at clubland and you see it at rep level. So for us, fingers crossed that everyone comes through this weekend."

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Mitchell Pearce, Brett Morris and Nathan Peats were the only players who failed to back-up for their NRL clubs last weekend after picking up knocks, however the trio are all expected to turn out in round 14.

Cronulla quartet James Maloney, Andrew Fifita, Jack Bird and Wade Graham are also set to play for the Sharks after resting up during the Sharks' bye.

Daley admitted he isn't totally married to sticking with the same line-up.

"The players underneath have to be playing very well and if you think that someone out of that team is not performing or losing a little bit of confidence, you do look at changing," he said.

"But ideally you'd like to go with the 17.

"From what I saw on the weekend, all our players backed up really well and the guys that didn't will get out there on the weekend and try and play well."

The fourth-year Blues mentor refused to buy into increasing speculation Queensland will be forced to make mass changes and again warned his team against complacency on June 21.

"You need to be guarded because the other side to that is that the other team is hurt and embarrassed. And you know that they're not going to play like that again," he said.

"If our guys just waltz into camp thinking that it's just going to happen again, we'll be in for a rude shock."

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7 June 2017




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