Queensland's pathetic reaction to State of Origin loss that shows they're kidding themselves

OPINION

Queensland have officially entered sore loser territory with some of the claims they're making about Reece Walsh and Haumole Olakau’atu after NSW's series victory in State of Origin. The Maroons have suffered their first series loss under coach Billy Slater - and it's pretty clear they're not used to it.

Some of the rhetoric being thrown around about how Walsh needs to be protected more and was hit numerous times when he didn't have the ball are nothing short of delusional. Slater and Broncos coach Kevin Walters have both bemoaned the treatment that Walsh copped on Wednesday night, but the reality is very different.

The incident in question came in the 55th minute when Walsh stayed down on the ground in apparent agony after passing the ball. Queenslanders are claiming Angus Crichton hit him illegally in the back, but replays have shown it was a complete accident.

Crichton inadvertently collided with Walsh while tracking across field to follow the ball, before accidentally falling on top of the diminutive fullback. It probably would have hurt to have a big forward land on top of you, but Walsh looked like he'd been shot as he lay writhing on the ground in agony.

"I think he was certainly getting hit a fair bit without the footy," Slater said after Wednesday night's game. "It is State of Origin. I know what it is like and I understand what he is going through. It is just the way it is."

Broncos coach Walters followed that up on Friday by saying: "The NRL certainly has to look at [protecting] Walsh. Everyone targets him, and that's going to be a thing for the rest of his career."

But if you watched the whole game, you would have seen Walsh gave it as good as he got it. He somehow escaped being charged by the NRL for collecting Stephen Crichton in the head with his boot while trying to stop a try, in what many thought Walsh deliberately tried to kick his NSW opponent.

And some of Walsh's actions in the opening 15 minutes were lucky not to draw the ire of officials as well. The fullback was involved in two separate tackles in which it looked like he was trying to rip Dylan Edwards and Mitchell Moses' heads off, grabbing them around the face and neck in ugly scenes. If anyone got away with off-the-ball stuff in Game 3 it was arguably Walsh.

What did Haumole Olakau’atu actually do to get banned?

The other massive gripe being thrown around by Queenslanders is the two-match ban handed down to Olakau’atu for getting involved in a melee when he wasn't even playing. Olakau’atu was in the NSW squad for Game 3 but not part of the playing 17, and was banished from the sideline when he got involved in the scuffle and grabbed Valentine Holmes.

The NRL took a dim view of his actions and banned him for two NRL games, but Corey Parker and Gorden Tallis don't think it's enough. “A player not even in the game is getting a two week suspension. It’s completely unacceptable," Parker said on SEN radio on Friday. “It’s ludicrous. He should get six weeks at least. We cannot have somebody not involved in the game at all being involved in a melee like that. Did he throw a punch? No. But he had Valentine Holmes around his neck.

“If this was Goodna v Brothers down the road and someone was dressed in plain clothes and involved in a melee, they would get a life ban. It can’t happen yet we are happy for a two-game ban to be thrown on Olakau’atu because he’s a player? He didn’t even play in the game. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near it."

Tallis expressed similar sentiments on NRL 360 on Thursday night, declaring the NRL had to set an example for amateur and grass roots footy that people not involved in a game can't get involved when things turn nasty. It's hard to disagree, but can we judge the incident with Olakau’atu on what actually happened? Which is nothing.

As Parker said, there weren't any punches thrown and no one was injured in the slightest. Olakau’atu is now missing two games for grabbing someone's shirt. Fair enough the NRL had to make an example out of him, but plenty of people in NSW reckon the ban is very heavy-handed.

As NSW coach Michael Maguire said, it was an example of the squad mentality that the Blues have had all series that Olakau’atu was sticking up for his teammates. It's not like the Manly forward was a complete random - he played in the first two games of the series.

Cameron Murray's suspension is an absolute joke

Maybe the NRL should have put more focus into the fact two NSW players were surrounded by no less than 14 Queenslanders during the melee, yet none of the Maroons were suspended. Cameron Murray has also been banned because he wasn't on the field when he joined the melee.

The South Sydney forward was waiting to come into the game with an interchange card in his hand, and was the closest Blues player when the scuffle spilled over the sideline. Murray saw Jarome Luai pinned to the ground and Brian To'o in a headlock being thrown into a chair, and couldn't resist running in.

RELATED:

• Reece Walsh suffers new blow as more bad news emerges for fullback

• Cooper Cronk call backfires brutally as QLD great turns on Billy Slater

If the NRL reckons Murray shouldn't have tried to help his teammates when it looked like it was 14 v 2 they are kidding themselves. Any other player in Murray's situation would have done the same thing, and if he was standing one metre inside the touch-line he wouldn't have been banned.

It's not like he ran onto the field to get involved - the melee was already over the sideline. For Murray to cop a two-game ban just because he was standing on the wrong side of the touch-line is a complete joke.