Joey Johns

Game one at the SFS, it was early in the game, and the way Laurie came from outside in and just smashed Gigi, I was like, fuck, this is how you play Origin.

Yeah, right.

The players have to take some responsibility.

That's right.

Like God loved Tommy and everyone loved Tommy.

There was training sessions.

He didn't turn up.

He wasn't there.

We'd train in the morning, come back, and there'd be a Bentley out the front of Coogee, our spiritual home, and we'd go in and him and John Singleton would be on the piss.

So he goes, how are we going to defend?

And he goes, I just want you to go up and smash him.

And then Laurie went to Tommy and goes, mate, everyone plays a slide defence now, which is a totally different defensive pattern, where we go up and we hold and we slide and push towards the sideline.

He goes, okay.

And Tommy loved Laurie.

He called him Dales.

He goes, okay, I've been talking to Dales boys and I'm going to change the defensive system.

We're going to go up and we're going to smash them and rip their heads off and then we're going to slide them.

I didn't see it, but I heard about it the next day.

So then I went and looked at it.

What was Matthew doing?