Footy world turns on ‘washed' Queensland greats after NSW thrashing
Queensland is picking up the pieces after a heavy 18-6 Game 1 loss to NSW and experts and fans alike are looking squarely at one key change for the Maroons.
The Blues bolted out of the blocks, dominating the first half in front of a shell-shocked Suncorp Stadium crowd, taking a 14-2 lead into the break.
Brian To'o's sin bin just before halftime for tackling Xavier Coates over the tryline briefly gave Queensland hope of a comeback, but it wasn't to be as NSW claimed the victory ahead of games in Perth and Sydney.
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While the Blues came into the match carrying a number of injury concerns, it was the Maroons that looked short of a gallop, with veteran Daly Cherry-Evans coming in for plenty of criticism.
The 36-year-old has been a staple of the Queensland side for years, but did set a new record for the oldest player in Origin history on Wednesday, surpassing Petero Civoniceva.
Cowboys playmaker Tom Dearden came on in the second half and many are calling for him to start Game 2.
Maroons great Shane Webcke admitted after the game he did have concerns for his state moving forward and reluctantly pointed the finger at the Manly halfback.
'Yeah a bit. There are some serious questions to be asked and one of them might be Daly Cherry-Evans,' Webcke told Triple M radio.
'I just feel like he's at that point of his career and when you see him with Cameron Munster tonight, the magic wasn't there and that worries me.
'I hate to suggest that about a bloke like Daly Cherry-Evans.
'I feel like at the end of the last series, we probably missed an opportunity with a bloke like him, he's 36 years old, the opportunity was probably there to reinvent a bit.
'I think we might pay a price for not having done that.'
Cherry-Evans was also interviewed after the game on Channel 9 and at least talked a big game about Queensland's hopes of getting back into the series.
'The obvious one is we're going to have to do it the hard way, but it's been done before,' he said.
'That's the opportunity we've got in front of us, but that hurts.
'The result right now, you work so hard, you put so much into the week, when it doesn't go your way it's really difficult to not be disappointed.
'Credit to the Blues but we've got a bit of work to do.'
If it's up to plenty of those watching on, however, DCE may not get the chance to help lead a Queensland fightback.
Cherry-Evans and fellow veteran Munster seemed to cop the most vitriol from Maroons fans on social media.
One wrote: 'DCE washed, Munster washed, Ponga washed, Harry Houdini Grant missing and the Hammer not sighted.'
The Warriors NRL Fanatics handle declared: 'DCE time to retire.'
Another fan offered: 'Jeez munster and DCE in 2025 makes easy viewing for Blues.'
A fourth wrote: 'NEEDS to be Munster + Dearden Game 2, DCE on the bench.'
A fifth stated: 'Thanks for your service Cherry Evans, time to move on.'
The Channel 9 team then analysed the Queensland side after the game and felt it was hard to see the Maroons getting back into this year's series.
'I think NSW, if they were on tonight, they win by 40 or 50,' Andrew Johns said. 'They'll be better for that.
'This group here Queensland, I don't know if they can go up another level. I think there has to be changes.
'Corey Horsborgh could add something, Jai Arrow is an Origin player, but the big one is whether they pull the trigger on Dearden and DCE.'
Phil Gould agreed with Joey's sentiment.
'I think Queensland are really going to have some nightmares over that game,' Gould said.
'I just don't see any answers for them. I don't see any answers in the selection room, the individual players in the team are going to have to play better but in all the important parts of the game tonight they were just outpointed tonight.
'Now I don't know that they've got it in them to come back from that.'
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ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Alan Kohler on making housing a bad investment
Sam Hawley: Interest rates might be coming down, but house prices are, once again, heading in the other direction. Given there is a major problem with housing affordability, and there are so many people who can't even afford to enter the market, why on earth is that? Today, the ABC's finance expert, Alan Kohler, on how conditions are ripe for a housing price surge, just as they were back in the early 2000s. In other words, why history's repeating. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal Land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Sam Hawley: Alan, interest rates are coming down and they could drop even further this year. So that should mean houses are more affordable for borrowers. But it's not that simple and you're going to explain to us why. Now, to do that, let's go back to the turn of the century. In 2001, the Reserve Bank was cutting rates just like it is now, wasn't it? Alan Kohler: Correct. Sam Hawley: What was going on back then? Alan Kohler: In 2001, the Reserve Bank cut interest rates six times that year. News report: Nervous anticipation for one of the Reserve Bank's most expected interest rate cuts, the sixth and last this year. Alan Kohler: And that was in response to the dot-com crash in the United States, which happened on basically in March of 2000. It continued for a while. The Nasdaq halved, more than halved. And there was a recession in the United States. The Reserve Bank was concerned that the Australian dollar would rise too much because of that, because obviously the US Federal Reserve was cutting interest rates in response to the recession. So the Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates in precaution, even though there was no recession in Australia. The economy did slow a bit. There was a bit of a fall in the share market, but not anything like what happened in the US. Sam Hawley: And the other thing that was happening back then was there was some pretty major policy changes, including the introduction of the capital gains discount and the return of a first home buyers grant. So just remind me of those policies at that time. Alan Kohler: Yes. So in 1999, the Howard Government appointed a business tax review committee, a panel of three businessmen to report on the business tax system. And what they wanted to do, what Howard and Costello wanted to do then, was to reduce the company tax rate from 36 to 30%. So they asked some businessmen to tell them whether that was a good idea. And well, they told them it was a great idea. Go ahead. But in the course of doing that, they also recommended a change in the capital gains tax regime so that instead of the capital gains tax being adjusted for inflation, they recommended a simple 50% discount, which the Howard Government duly applied. Peter Costello, then-Treasurer: Under the reforms which we announced today, a 50% reduction in the taxable gain, that is 50% of the gain is not taxable. Alan Kohler: And although it's the case that that didn't really change the amount of capital gains tax at the time because inflation was quite high. So actually, the 50% discount was roughly the same as the inflation adjustment for the average time that people were holding assets. What I think happened was that it changed the psychology of investing in property because everyone understands a discount, whereas nobody really gets inflation and certainly can't do it in their heads. Sam Hawley: So even if you don't understand capital gains tax, just understand that if it's 50% discount, that's a good thing. Alan Kohler: Exactly. Sam Hawley: If you're a homeowner, right? Alan Kohler: Precisely. And that added to negative gearing, which had been in place for a long time, to make investing in housing an attractive thing to do. The businessmen who recommended it thought that it would lead to Australia becoming a nation of share owners and buy the shares of their companies and drive the prices higher and lower their cost of capital. But that, in fact, didn't happen because people just want to invest in housing. And that's what happened. And as you say, also the Howard government reintroduced first homebuyer grants in 2000, which had been out of action for a while. The first homebuyer grant was in the 1960s under Menzies, but the Hawke-Keating government didn't do them and Howard reintroduced them. Sam Hawley: Okay, so rates are going down. There's these two major policy changes. And at the time, there was a simply huge rise in immigration. Alan Kohler: Exactly. And what caused that in around about 2005 was a change to the way foreign students were assessed in 2001. On July 1st, 2001, the system was changed. Up to that point, foreign students' visas were issued on the basis of either gazetted countries or non-gazetted countries. China and India were included in the non-gazetted countries and it was very difficult for students from those places to get a visa. After July 1st, 2001, that changed and became the same for everybody, which is the way it ought to be, of course. But that led eventually to a huge increase in students from China and India from the mid-2000s. And that led to a doubling and then tripling of net overseas migration into Australia. At the time. Sam Hawley: Wow. All right. So we get a pot and then we put all these things into it and we stir it around. So there's the capital gains tax, there's the first homeowner's grant, the rates are dropping and there's this massive increase in immigration. And when you stir it all around, you come out, Alan, with house prices rising. Alan Kohler: Yes. Well, so all of those four things that we've discussed added to demand from investors and migrants and so on. So there was a big increase in demand, but there was no response in supply. The government did nothing about increasing supply at the time. And the result was that for 10 years, between 2005 and 2015, there was a dire, big shortage of housing, an undersupply of housing for a decade, which really set the scene for a big increase in house prices. And what happened was that the house price to income ratio rose from between three to four times incomes, this is average incomes in 2000, to eight or nine times incomes at the end of that time. And that was a huge change in the way that housing related to people's incomes and also GDP of the there was a stop to immigration during the pandemic. And then post the pandemic, population growth has gone back to more than 2% per annum, which is what it was in the period after 2005. Sam Hawley: All right. So, Alan, that's the history of the skyrocketing house prices and how we ended up here. Now, today, interesting that we have exactly the same conditions. Alan Kohler: That's right. The Reserve Bank is cutting interest rates, probably not by six times, but by probably four or five times this year, possibly into next year as well. We've got first time buyer grants back on. We've got a big increase in migration. I mean, the Treasury forecast in the budget for this financial year, net overseas migration is 335,000. But in the first nine months of the year, it's already 360,000 and looks like being 400,000 this year. There's no targets on immigration, but there's a Treasury forecast and net overseas migration is going to well exceed the Treasury forecast. And of course, there's been no change in the capital gains tax discount because the Labor Party failed to win in 2016 and 2019, where that is their policy to reduce it 25%. All the conditions are in place for another rise in house prices. Sam Hawley: Exactly. So what are we seeing already and what do we expect to see then when it comes to the cost of housing in Australia? Alan Kohler: Between November last year and January this year, house prices actually fell by close to 1%. This is the national median price, having increased 17% in the previous 12 months or so. And since January, they've risen again by more than the increase in average wages over that period. News report: House prices are continuing to rise across the country, with experts predicting property values to grow between 6 and 10% by the end of the year. All the capitals rose more than 0.4 of a percent in May. That brings the national index 1.7% higher over the first five months of the year. Alan Kohler: House prices are already starting to rise in excess of the rise in incomes. And the thing is, you know, everyone says houses are unaffordable, which is kind of true, which you would think would mean house prices don't rise very much now, because if they're unaffordable already, then people can't afford them. But in fact, falling interest rates makes them more affordable. The determinant of affordability is the amount you can afford in terms of interest repayments or mortgage repayments. Really, a better measure might be time to save a deposit, because the problem is that deposits are becoming unreachable for a lot of people. So housing is becoming inaccessible. It's OK if you've got a deposit, because your parents have given you one, given you the money, but those who don't have access to some sort of provision of a deposit can't get into housing. And that's the problem. Sam Hawley: Yeah. There's just a certain number of people that keep buying properties and pushing the amount or the cost of properties up. I mean, there's enough people that can afford the properties because the property price keeps going upwards and upwards. Alan Kohler: Correct. The truth is that if you don't have a parent who can give you the money for a deposit or some other way of getting ahold of a deposit, as opposed to saving it, you're a renter. You cannot buy a house. That is the reality of the situation, particularly in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, but increasingly in Perth and Adelaide and Hobart as well, and also everywhere in Australia. I don't know what's to be done about it, really. Sam Hawley: All right. Oh, gosh. So, dare I ask you then, if you don't have the bank of mum and dad or any family members that can actually help you in this process of getting this massive deposit to buy a home, is there really no chance ever that you're going to land in the property market at this point? Alan Kohler: Well, there has to be a big shift in the value of housing versus incomes. Prices would need to go back to the sort of relationship to incomes that they were 25 years ago, which is three to four times instead of the current sort of nine or 10 times. And the only way that's going to happen is if house prices stay where they are for a while, like a long time, like 20 years. Now, that will only happen if there's an oversupply of housing for that period. Both the federal government and the state governments are all doing what they can. They're working hard. I know, you know, they're genuinely working hard to increase supply, but there's a problem. The trouble is that the construction industry doesn't have the capacity, partly because productivity is so low. In fact, the Committee for Economic Development in Australia, CEDA, released a report about construction productivity and why is it so low. And they do say in the report that we're building now half as many houses per worker as we did in the 70s. So that's fallen by half. But not only is productivity low, the number of workers is also in decline because the average age of builders tends to be quite high. They're all retiring and there's not enough apprentices coming through. The government is talking about increasing the number of tradies who they bring in as migrants, which is definitely what's needed. They're not talking about anywhere near enough of them coming in. And any way, the regulator of the industry is reluctant to recognise foreign qualifications in the construction industry. So, you know, there's a real kind of blockage of kind of productivity and number of people in the construction industry. I think it's going to be difficult to achieve the kind of oversupply of housing over the next sort of decade or two that is required. Sam Hawley: And Alan, while we're waiting for all these houses to be built, conditions are absolutely ripe for house prices just to keep surging. Alan Kohler: Yeah. And the governments, in addition to doing the work that they're doing on supply, which is good, they're also kind of doing short-term band-aid measures, including helping first homebuyers, either through help to buy schemes or grants and so on. And so that just tends to increase demand and increase prices, because a lot of those grants just end up on the price. So, yeah, look, I don't think it's particularly good news on the subject of housing. I'd like it to be different. And there's no big magic bullet. There's just going to be a lot of sort of small work, grinding work to be done. And, you know, the fact is we have to go through a period where housing is a really bad investment. Sam Hawley: Alan Kohler presents the Finance Report on the ABC's 7pm News. This episode was produced by Sydney Pead. Audio production by Adair Sheppard. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.
ABC News
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I'm not saying we're anywhere close to beating the Aussies, but I also don't believe there is a 90-point gap. "Internally it didn't harm us, but it made us question whether we are resting a little bit, and if we need to dig in a little bit deeper. I think the women's game is still in a good place, but we don't hide from the fact that there is still a lot to be done." After leaving the international set-up, Richards returned to St Helens where he succeeded Matty Smith as women's joint head coach alongside Derek Hardman for the start of the current campaign. He will lead Saints out at Wembley on Saturday as they bid for their fifth successive women's Challenge Cup win against Wigan, in a match Richards hopes will serve as a timely reminder of the strength of the English women's game. Former England women's rugby league head coach Craig Richards believes the 90-4 humiliation by Australia in Las Vegas in March did "a lot of damage" to the perception of the sport in this country. His side's march to the semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup had a surge of interest in the women's game and led indirectly to a number of star England players landing historic contracts in the fully professional NRL. Richards, who announced his departure from the England job in an emotional press conference after their last defeat to New Zealand, hopes the chastening experience in the US will act as a timely wake-up call for the domestic game. "Social media-wise, it did a lot of damage," said Richards of the Las Vegas clash, which was bolted onto an international program that also saw the start of the men's NRL season and the Super League clash between Wigan and Warrington. "I don't think it was a true reflection of where we are at. I'm not saying we're anywhere close to beating the Aussies, but I also don't believe there is a 90-point gap. "Internally it didn't harm us, but it made us question whether we are resting a little bit, and if we need to dig in a little bit deeper. I think the women's game is still in a good place, but we don't hide from the fact that there is still a lot to be done." After leaving the international set-up, Richards returned to St Helens where he succeeded Matty Smith as women's joint head coach alongside Derek Hardman for the start of the current campaign. He will lead Saints out at Wembley on Saturday as they bid for their fifth successive women's Challenge Cup win against Wigan, in a match Richards hopes will serve as a timely reminder of the strength of the English women's game. Former England women's rugby league head coach Craig Richards believes the 90-4 humiliation by Australia in Las Vegas in March did "a lot of damage" to the perception of the sport in this country. His side's march to the semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup had a surge of interest in the women's game and led indirectly to a number of star England players landing historic contracts in the fully professional NRL. Richards, who announced his departure from the England job in an emotional press conference after their last defeat to New Zealand, hopes the chastening experience in the US will act as a timely wake-up call for the domestic game. "Social media-wise, it did a lot of damage," said Richards of the Las Vegas clash, which was bolted onto an international program that also saw the start of the men's NRL season and the Super League clash between Wigan and Warrington. "I don't think it was a true reflection of where we are at. I'm not saying we're anywhere close to beating the Aussies, but I also don't believe there is a 90-point gap. "Internally it didn't harm us, but it made us question whether we are resting a little bit, and if we need to dig in a little bit deeper. I think the women's game is still in a good place, but we don't hide from the fact that there is still a lot to be done." After leaving the international set-up, Richards returned to St Helens where he succeeded Matty Smith as women's joint head coach alongside Derek Hardman for the start of the current campaign. He will lead Saints out at Wembley on Saturday as they bid for their fifth successive women's Challenge Cup win against Wigan, in a match Richards hopes will serve as a timely reminder of the strength of the English women's game.
