Like Adelaide, NSW started this year’s Origin series half an hour behind. By that stage Queensland had grabbed two tries, the initiative and a renewal of their particular Origin mystique. Like their unfamiliar jersey, the NSW mood was dark, and blue.
Spreading the rugby league gospel to the city of churches was never going to advantage the Blues. Penrith is west, but not that far west. Playing on an oval-shaped field surrounded by grandstands named for Australian rules footballers didn’t help. Neutral South Australians in the crowd of 48,000 (nothing else on in Adelaide) had turned out in Queensland colours. NSW are the Manly of Origin.
But they would like to be the Penrith of Origin. The clock eventually struck Sydney time and the Blues, who had been as simpatico as spouses on Married at First Sight, suddenly understood each other.
The Penrith contingent found the love again, and it was right under their noses, at home, complete with code names and special rehearsed handshakes. Liam Martin ran onto the field – the eighth present or past Panther on the Adelaide Oval – and immediately ran onto a Jarome Luai pass to score untouched. The dark blues were stepping lighter.
Before long, the Panthers began playing exclusively with themselves. Isaah Yeo to Nathan Cleary to Luai to Stephen Crichton to Brian To’o. Tom Trbojevic got to touch the ball with a fingertip, but that’s it. James Tedesco began running decoy lines. The game started to get a September feeling about it. Possibly we were watching a preview of a Penrith-Brisbane grand final.
Hammer time in Adelaide as Queensland’s Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow opens the scoring.Credit: Getty
Anyway, after so much that was unusual, half-time had a familiar feeling: NSW dominating all the stats except the scoreboard; Queensland meandering off the field looking cooked, pooped, done. It’s happened so many times, there must be something to this; the Blues throwing all their body language at talking themselves toward confidence, the Maroons lurking and limping, waiting for their moment.
As the second half started, they looked like they have to wait another three weeks. Adelaide is not a rugby league town (hello Rams, defunct for 25 years this year), and it does not obey rugby league laws. Maybe it’s the absence of convict history.
In any case, the moments that came early in the second stanza were notable for Queensland errors. Koroisau scored from the first to take NSW into the lead, and Queensland missed an opportunity when Lindsay Collins spilt the ball deep in attack. The Maroons began giving away penalties. Some in the crowd were confused by why the players held onto the ball when they were tackled; Queensland duly began dropping it.
Queensland celebrate a remarkable victory in Adelaide.Credit: Getty
Penrith capitalised, the match sealed to all intents and purposes when a Cleary kick was tapped backwards for Crichton to score. After Thomas Flegler was sin-binned, unusually, for getting hit in the head, Queensland played the last part of the game one player short.
So, there you go, another NSW victory, clearly the superior team on paper, better statistics all around the ground, and Queensland were utterly exhausted. Concussed players were wearing a groove in the turf walking off to the bench.
There was a clear difference, and you only had to look at the names on the teams’ chests. Both were sponsored by banks, NSW by one of the Big Four, Queensland by what appeared to be the Bank of Mum and Dad. NSW and Origin. So dominant. So predictable.
Um …
OK …
NSW come to terms with another Origin match that got away.Credit: Getty
It might have taken its time, but Adelaide did catch up with the rugby league universe. Of course: Adelaide, that’s in Queensland.
Cameron Munster would later point out that the game of rugby league lasts 80 minutes. He had a point. The Blues must have been given different information.
With 10 to go, Queensland became Queensland. And NSW became NSW.
First, Munster put Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow away on the side of the ground where NSW had their overlap. It, like everything else in Origin, was a figment of their imagination. Then Daly Cherry-Evans put up a pinpoint kick and Collins, by Tony Modra out of Tex Walker, leapt like an Adelaide Crow above Tedesco to put Munster over.
NSW had travelled a long way and gone navy to avoid it happening again, but blue is still blue and Origin is Origin, and they had just been Queenslanded.
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