Queensland Origin legend Cameron Smith has been accused of not giving Channel Nine value for money after he made a halftime speech to the Maroons instead of commentating at the year’s first State of Origin game on Wednesday night.
‘How can you have a man working in the Channel 9 commentary box and coaching the Maroons at the same time?’ he wrote. ‘Surely you can’t double dip and do two jobs on the one night.’
While his colleagues dissected the first half of the match, Smith was filmed addressing coach Billy Slater’s team in the dressing room as he revved them up for what turned out to be a miraculous 40 minutes of action.
Asked on the telecast about what he said to the players, Smith explained what he stressed to the side. ‘I was just applauding the side for their efforts, particularly on their goal line defence in the first half,’ he said.
‘NSW spent plenty of time and there was plenty of tackles inside the Maroons 20-metre zone. ‘I was just reiterating what the coaches said just before I got in there.’ Smith’s ties to Slater and the Maroons are longstanding and extremely strong.
The pair starred on the field for Queensland during their golden run of wins over NSW from the early 2000s to 2017, while at the same time leading the Melbourne Storm to an incredibly successful stretch in the NRL. Smith was widely referred to as an NRL coach in waiting when he retired at the end of the 2020 season, and became an assistant coach with Queensland last year.
Smith’s address obviously hit the right notes as Queensland stormed back from 18-16 down through late tries to Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow and Cameron Munster to run out 26-18 winners with both of those scores coming while they were a man down courtesy of Thomas Flegler’s controversial sin binning.
While other members of Nine’s commentary team have covered Origin for Nine while being involved in coaching at interstate level such as NSW assistant Andrew Johns they haven’t carried out their duties for their team during a broadcast.
