Emma Tomlinson has copped some serious stick online after attempt at the national anthem ahead of State of Origin III.
The Queensland singer songwriter was tasked with opening proceedings ahead of the series decider.
But her nervy effort has drawn significant criticism with one watcher saying she ‘slaughtered it.’
In some aspects, singing the national anthem ahead of the State of Origin is somewhat of a thankless job, with singers often receiving criticism over praise.
Just ask Robbie Mortimer who had his national anthem described as the worst ever ahead of Origin I.
Tomlinson may have copped some of the worst criticism of a national anthem online with one user on X, named matt666 saying, ‘scrap the national anthem at all sporting events.’
Emma Tomlinson has been criticised for her rendition of the national anthem
Another Matt on the same platform added, ‘And the anthem singer is out of time.
‘How bad have these origin anthem performers been this year?’
Another like Jason Ford joked, ‘You’ve heard of NSYNC? That anther was OUTOFSYNC.’
Tomlinson’s effort was the last in what has been perceived as string of poor efforts.
One user wrote, ‘Australia’s national sport is botching the anthem. It’s a shame they don’t have a World Cup.’
And the criticism wasn’t just reserved for the nervy sound, or out of sync sound, one user was unhappy with the accent.
‘Was that national anthem in British accent?’ they questioned of Tomlinson singing the national anthem.
The national anthem was the latest in a number of pregame issues facing the State of Origin this year.
A massive Telstra outage has caused chaos ahead of the State of Origin decider at SunCorp stadium.
There had been initial fears that the game would have to go ahead without the use of video review.
But a solution has now been offered with the bunker operating out of television truck in Brisbane.
The bunker is the centralised facility in Sydney, watching replays on many different camera angles and reporting to the referees.
The Telstra outage had caused havoc and left Sydney unable to make contact with officials inside the stadium.
Initially it had been suggested that the game would go ahead without the video review sysem.
But after a bit of a panic, they finally found a solution to their problem by moving the bunker away from Sydney.
That change also resulted in a change of match officials with ABC reporting that Gerard Sutton and Jared Maxwell have been drafted in for Bunker duty.
