Matt Burton has been called into Blues camp as 18th man if Stephen Crichton is ruled out today, with Campbell Graham on the verge of an Origin debut.
All eyes were on injured front-rower Payne Haas at NSW training on Monday but it was star centre Stephen Crichton who failed to finish the session.
Crichton has sent an injury scare through the Blues camp as the Bulldogs skipper limped off the training park with an ice pack on his left leg.
Maroons skipper Daly Cherry-Evans has hit back at suggestions that anything untoward was discussed in his recent chat with Origin referee Ashley Klein.
An image emerged over the weekend of Cherry-Evans and Klein having a relaxed conversation in the grandstand at Brookvale Oval two weeks ago.
Klein will referee State of Origin series opener and NSW great Ben Elias responded to the photo with “it is that time of year again when Queensland start buttering up the referees”.
Cherry-Evans poured cold water on the Elias’ implication that his relationship with Klein would benefit the Maroons at Suncorp Stadium on Wednesday night.
He says he is not going to be able to remember the conversation exactly because he doesn’t remember it being nothing more than just a conversation.
The Maroons skipper says they have referees come out to their training sessions weekly at Manly, they are humans.
He says they have families and more often than not they’re just talking about their kids and how much they are misbehaving.
Cherry-Evans says read into it what you will, but there’s nothing really there for him.
Source: foxsports.au
