It's Going to be another Blue Year

Fuck my life.

It's with increasing frequency that i've found myself uttering that charming phrase of late.

Writing stress, university stress, hell I make up stress when I don't have any just to bust an FML. But thanks to Bob Fulton, Laurie Daley, Bob McCarthy, Geoff Gerard and (king-rat) Craig Bellamy, I didn't have to stretch that imagination far for a reason to burst into expletives.

This year will mark the fifth year in a row that New South Wales will be beaten by Queensland in the State of Origin. Yes, a record five consecutive victories for the scum from the Sunshine state.

Wait, Wait! Duff aren't you from Queensland?

Nope, that birth certificate says Albury, New South Wales. So I will be a Blues fan till the day I die, despite the fact I have divided my life roughly equally between living in New South Wales, Queensland and currently Victoria.

Being a Blues fan hasn't been all bad. There were glory years - a 3-0 whitewash in 2000, three series victories on the bounce between 2003-2005 (it was great living in Brisbane those years!). But ever since Ricky Stuart's one and done campaign in 2005, we've been plagued with Graham Murray and Craig Bellamy in charge of our sides.

Bellamy got the job as New South Wales coach on the back of what looked like his masterful achievement with his loaded Storm squad in the NRL competition. In light of what has come out in the last month or so, it's pretty obvious that the guy can't coach as well as everyone assumed. After all he coached his salary overloaded team to a record grand final defeat at the hands of Manly in 2008. Can someone call the NSWRL and let them know that Bellamy's ability to be on the beneficial side of some creative accountancy won't help the Blues win the origin.

In any case I think Bellamy is a clown and the only thing that saved him from the axe last year, was that the team sparked up for a dead rubber in the third match. So it raised my ire even further today when I read stuff about the New South Wales selectors believing they've done a good job. For fuck sake, you should have been sacked last year, but surrender another home series and it isn't a question of if you should be sacked, its a question of how soon can you get your shit out of Phillip Street.

The bookmakers obviously have zero faith in the selectors with New South Wales moving from reasonably warm favoruites ($1.75) for the series before the announcement of game one teams, to drifting underdogs ($2.20). I'm not impressed with the team that has been picked and to be honest i'm not feeling confident. But the beauty of Origin football is that it will be played out on the field over three mid-week classics. It's going to be some stress if we succumb to another defeat, but it will be ectasy if we pull the win out.