Old Raiders mates Mal Meninga and Laurie Daley butt heads over Nate Myles claims LAST year it was Ricky Stuart. This time around Queensland coach Mal Meninga has earned the ire of another of his former Canberra teammates and great friends when rookie Blues coach Laurie Daley took aim at his former captain ahead of Origin II in Brisbane tomorrow night. A story in the Sydney press last week urging referees to outlaw Nate Myles's use of his head in tackles has sparked an exchange between the opposing coaches, which has spiced up the clash at Suncorp Stadium. Despite saying he would not follow Stuart's lead and be drawn into a slanging match with his former club captain at the Raiders, Daley was unimpressed by Meninga's newspaper column on Sunday, in which he claimed poor officiating was changing the game. Meninga suggested the referees' failure to police the NSW markers and an inflated 10m was rendering the traditional prop forward redundant and was to blame for Maroons selectors overlooking Ben Hannant and David Shillington. That was followed by photographs in the Courier-Mail yesterday showing clear infringements by NSW players standing at marker, with a headline describing the players as cheats -- a point Daley disputed during a testy media conference at the NSW team hotel. "I can give you three or four clips of Queensland not being square at marker, I can give you another three or four clips of them being at least a metre and a half in front of the referee if they want to go down that path," Daley said. Obviously they feel under a bit of pressure to come out and say those type of things but to call us cheats -- I don't think that is in the right spirit. This is just a sign of them trying to influence the referee, and they might do a good job because I was just looking at the stats and the last eight times we've been up here we've only won one penalty count. Daley dismissed the notion the articles could be used to motivate his team in its bid to end Queensland's historic seven-year run as champion of the Origin arena, saying the chance for this NSW squad to "make their own history" should be motivation enough. History suggests Daley's men face an uphill challenge trying to seal the series win in Queensland. Of the seven times the Blues have travelled to Brisbane with a 1-0 lead series lead, only once have they headed home with the Origin shield in their possession. That happened in the 2000 series, when a rampant NSW side crushed Queensland 3-0 in a series so one-sided some commentators suggested the future of the concept was in doubt. The following year Wayne Bennett and Darren Lockyer teamed up to guide the Queensland to yet another famous, backs-to-the-wall series victory. As Bennett did in 2001, Meninga has sought to usher in a new era of Maroons, with Josh Papalii and Daly Cherry-Evans to debut alongside fellow relative newcomers Chris McQueen, Ben Te'o and Matt Gillett. Still, Daley was not going to miss the chance to question the apparent lack of loyalty shown to long-serving duo Shillington and Ashley Harrison, who were axed after sub-par games in Sydney. "Shillington and Harrison have been mainstays for the past couple of years and if that had been NSW we certainly would have stuck by them," Daley said.