Moses, McLean on restricted duties as Katoa leaves camp
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Five-eighth Mitchell Moses has declared he is on track to take his place in the NSW team for next week’s Origin clash at the MCG.
The 31-year-old, who was a late withdrawal from the series opener at Accor Stadium after injuring his hamstring just two days before the match, trained on his own at the Blues' first session on Wednesday.
NSW team performance manager Frank Ponissi said Moses would return to training on Thursday.
"He will have a restricted session tomorrow but will be back in full training come Saturday," Ponissi said.
Centre Casey McLean sat out the session with an ankle injury.
"He probably won't train tomorrow but he will back in training on the weekend at our Saturday session," Ponissi said.
"Isaiya Katoa, who has been in camp with us for the past few days, has returned to Brisbane to play for the Dolphins on Friday night."
Ethan Strange, who stepped up and starred on debut to help the Blues pull off the biggest comeback in State of Origin history and prevail 22-20, trained in place of Moses.
The frantic final minutes
Moses hasn’t played since injuring his hamstring but completed a fitness test on Monday and expects to train with the squad leading into next Wednesday’s match.
“I’m confident in myself that I’ll be ready to go out there and do a job,” Moses said. “I’ll do everything right this week, get ready and prep and hopefully do a job for the state.
“I’ve learned to deal with injuries a bit better, I’ve had a fair few lately. I’m back in here now, I get another chance, so we’ll see how we go.”
Match: Blues v Maroons
Game 2 -
home Team
Blues
away Team
Maroons
Venue: Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne
NSW coach Laurie Daley revealed on Tuesday morning that Moses will need to run at 100% during Thursday’s session in order to retain his place in the Blues squad.
Should the five-eighth fall short, Strange will shift from the six-man bench to the starting side and Katoa will come into the squad for a potential Origin debut.
From the field: Ethan Strange
While the picture will become clearer on Thursday, Daley is confident Moses will train as required throughout the next week.
“He’ll have to train flat out on Thursday,” the coach said. “We probably won’t have him do all the session but he’ll need to be going at full clip. He’s on track to do that and there’s no issues as far as we’re concerned.
“Issy will go back and play with the Dolphins on Friday night. If we had a lot of concern, we would have made the call to have Issy in the 20 but we’re comfortable with it.”
Strange’s performance in Game One led to questions about whether he should retain the five-eighth role for next Wednesday’s clash at the MCG.
The rookie scored a try, had a linebreak and ran for 135 metres on debut and played a key role in NSW’s comeback in the final 20 minutes.
Ethan Strange Try
The Blues, however, missed Moses’ kicking game and acknowledged halfback Nathan Cleary was placed under considerable pressure as the sole kicker.
While acknowledging it was a tough call to select Moses and shift Strange to the bench, Daley declared the young gun will take to the field at some point in the match.
“Ethan Strange is an Origin player,” Daley said. “There is no denying that. His running game is as good as anyone in the competition. There’s a lot of things you look at when you’re going into how you want to play and how you want to build a team.
“Mitch is an important player. You look at Mitch’s record in Origin, it’s pretty good and he brings a lot of confidence to our team. He’s a different style of player to Ethan but they’ll both get game time. I’m excited about having them both on at the same time if we get the opportunity to do so.”
