Michael Maguire interview | Successful Origin series, Lomax's rise & more! 09:28

What an origin series it was, New South Wales winning it two games to one. The Blues prevailing at Suncorp Stadium in a decider for the first time since 2005. And gee, it was a bruising battle, brutal game of football with the Blues winning it by 14 points to four. Their coach in his first series as a coach of the Blues is Michael Maguire, and he's on the line. G'day, Madge. Congratulations. All right.

Hey, Mark. Thank you very much, mate. Well, I know the boys will go into chapter and verse on the game itself, but I just wanted to ask you, and, you know, I've been a big supporter of yours for a number of years now. A couple of people have mentioned to me in the lead-up to the game that you got quite emotional talking about the passion and the pride in the New South Wales jumper, and I thought that really shone through on Wednesday night from your playing group. Did you break down a few times talking to your players about what this means to New South Wales?

Yeah, I let down a few secrets there, but yeah, I guess I did. You know, it's hard not to when you're

You've grown up watching a team, dreaming, and I would love to have been a player, but I didn't have that opportunity. But then all of a sudden I landed as a coach. So that's something there that I was wanting to do all my life. So I guess I probably did show a fair bit of emotion at Thompson. There's nothing wrong with that, mate. I mean, it's that sort of game. You know, at any level, let alone state of origin. Can I just want to ask you, as a coach...

How was it different coaching the best of the best as opposed to, you know, I know there's a lot of good players playing first grade rugby league, but how did you handle it different? Did you handle it differently coaching a New South Wales side as opposed to, say, West Tigers or Souths or whatever? No.

You do, Daryl. I mean, you sort of, you know, when you've got the best of the best, they already know how to play and you've got the talent. It's more about just bringing them together emotionally and being connected. So I work a lot more on that part, albeit I still do that at Clubland. But when you've got the best, you've got the best in every position, you don't really need to be too technical. Basically, they know how to do it. Whereas when you're at Clubland, you're dealing with

a sprinkler of senior guys and then you've got a lot of younger guys that you're trying to educate to be at a certain level but those guys are there for a reason and they've been doing it consistently and I was fortunate to pick a group of men that

they're all at the top of their game. I said, I want to pick on form. And every single one of them have been playing great footy. So they basically brought that to the table when they sort of walked in the door. So realistically, I just needed to make sure that they're all connected as a group. And I felt that that was something there that I really enjoyed doing with the players. So would you say you undercoached them a bit? Is that like, just as you, I understand what you just said, but you're sort of not, you're not really giving them anything that they haven't heard before.

Yeah, you give them a little sort of simple plan, I suppose, but then you pull that plan out of those players as well. I mean, look at the quality of the guys I had. Between the two halves, they play a certain way, and then your back rowers like to run certain lines. You've got your middles that do certain attributes, and

I guess, you know, I've watched them so much prior to going into the camp. I know what their habits are and then I try and put the team together and just showing each of the players the qualities of who they're playing with. And then they tend to just, it's like the dot to dots. They just put them all together and away they go. But you keep it very simple because you've only got literally 10 days, three lots of 10 days of bringing the team together. And the first part of that,

sort of each camp you tend not to do too much because you've got a lot of media commitments and a few other things that you get to do together probably won't take them to a wave pool again you could have taken them horse riding Madge firstly congratulations mate I thought not just the win but the way you handled you know the whole six to nine weeks was outstanding I thought

You stood up for the state in all your press conferences, which gave confidence to the team. I thought some of your comments about the glass houses actually started to fire them up a little bit. So congratulations on all that, not just on the field, but off the field. The little bit I've had to do, I was really proud of the way you represented the state as our coach. So congratulations on that.

But I've heard you say a few times about connection and obviously with Zach coming back to the Dragons, you know, we get a bit of a feel. They don't like to talk too much about what goes on in origin camps, but,

The connection piece, I thought you did an outstanding job there. You know, every time you saw one of the players, they speak about camp and speak about their teammates. You spoke about it a lot, but to get it to happen is so hard. And, you know, obviously it all come together and it's an important part of winning football games. And you did a really good job in that space as well.

No, thanks, Flannoy. Probably I should be thanking you, mate. I'm glad you put him on the wing. He did a great job there. He came into camp and I guess the first thing you do is you've got to connect, as you just said. I mean, that's what a team is. When you're under the pump in one of those big games, you've only got each other.

And I guess that's something there that we've all tried to do as coaches do. But, you know, over the years, I've managed to sort of get a bit of experience in various teams. And I just basically tried to bottle that in what we did with the New South Wales boys. And, you know, real credit to the playing group. They've got a buy-in and they all came in wanting to win for the state.

I think we did a lot of work around where they've come from and we went back to the 85 when they first won so players start to understand what it really meant to people and I think that's what the State of Origin team stand for it is about the people and look I did come out and say it's the people's team but

You've got 9 million people and everywhere you go, everyone was talking about Origin. And, you know, I got sick and tired of hearing about they've got this and that and passion. And, mate, it's alive and well here in New South Wales and I just wanted the players to connect to that. And, you know, they jumped on board and helped us out. Go, Madge. Go, Madge. Yes. May not be his fist puppet. Yes. He loves it, Gals. Go, Madge.

Why didn't you show some when you were playing, girl? I've done my best. Unfortunately, I was playing against a few immortals. Matt, just one last quick one. Obviously, there wasn't a bad player in the decider, but Angus Crichton, outstanding, you know, and the story behind that. But,

But, you know, the halves get so much pressure and scrutinised when you lose. But your two halves through the whole series, I know that Michel only played two, but, you know, they got you home in the end. Oh, they did, Fano. You know, Jerome was excellent. You know, he just...

played his style of game and the players around him connected with him and Mitch kept it really simple and we all know his kicking game and in an origin, it's all about your kick. The further you get down the field, you're looking after your front row. So we just set up to make sure he could get his kick away and he did a great job. It was really nice to sort of see both those players break the game open in such a massive dogfight. They were backwards and forwards, both teams, and

because the ruck was slow and they went both ways, we had to really chip away at trying to find something. And those two boys found that, which was awesome. I had to buy carpet off the referee because it was about eight metres to ten. It was a short ten. It was a very slow play of the ball from game two to three. But anyway, you blokes have won. We got the win. We're all right. We're all right. But, Matt, we spoke a lot about connection in this interview and

Game one, you were beating 38 points to 10, whatever it was. What was the main message going into game two?

To turn it all around. Yeah, I just felt there was a tightness in the group in the game one. And obviously, when you're thrown in that circumstance, it was going to be tough. But I felt that there was a lot of fight in that game. And then I just spoke a lot about that. I said, mate, game one's gone. And we've got to take that strength of what we fought for each other in the game two. And I felt that they really did that. And we had a couple of guys come in which had a bit more experience, which was...

sort of added to the feeling of the team, which then took us forward into that second game. And they did a great job. But I knew the game three was going to be a real fight. You know, and everyone told me about going up there. It's near impossible. But we sort of blocked that out and said, no, we're going to create something here. And that's what the boys did. Great stuff. One last one, Madge. When the boys arrived at work today, we were talking about Origin and everything else. We were puzzled, though,

by the baseball bat. Can you shed some light on the baseball bat in the sheds? I actually have no idea what you're talking about. Come on, Major. Listen, Michael, all of the support that I've given you, some of the rubbish that's been written about you, can you give me something? What was the baseball bat? We might have to have a beer over that one. Yeah, I'm coming. I'm coming back. I want in.

You know what? I'd prefer the beer anyway. Good stuff. All right, Madge. Well, mate, again, thank you very much for the time you've given us here on the Continuous Call team and Wide World of Sports for that matter. Congratulations. Well deserved. You've joined the likes of Phil Gould, Brad Fittler, Ricky Stewart, who have won a series in your first campaign as a coach.

And I'll tell you what, you're putting together a great CV, Super League, Challenge Cup, NRL Premiership, that victory with the Kiwi Test team over the Kangaroos, now an Origin Series victory. You can coach, mate, and you should be enormously proud of yourself and we as a state say a big thank you to you and to your playing group. Bring on next year, eh? Thanks, Mark. Thanks, boys. Really appreciate it. I appreciate your support. Good on you, mate. There he is, Michael Maguire, the New South Wales Blues coach off the back of a 2-1 series victory over Queensland.