At half-time in Wednesday night’s absorbing State of Origin match, the NSW coaches huddled
together to address a major problem: how to defend for 10 minutes with 12 men.
The Blues’ left winger, Brian To’o, had been ludicrously sinbinned for tackling his opposite, Xavier Coates, as both contested the ball in the air on the last tackle of the first half.
The bunker had achieved what Queensland could not by making the game more competitive and creating an opportunity for the maroons to eat into NSW’s 12-point lead.
As the coaches pondered their options, right-winger Zac Lomax approached them and volunteered to swap sides.
Sometimes, players know more than coaches – this was such a moment. It meant that Lomax would defend the left-hand side, which the Maroons had been targeting relentlessly, leaving right centre Stephen Crichton to guard the other side of the field.
Crichton, the NRL’s best defensive centre, was the only Blues outside back capable of marking two
men.
As it transpired, Queensland scored only one try while they were a man short – when Coates went over – and that came as a result of left centre Latrell Mitchell losing the ball near
his posts, rather than a sustained Maroons assault on the weakened side.
Zac Lomax was voted man of the match by the NSW players.Credit: Getty Images
After their 18-6 victory, the NSW players voted Lomax their man of the match, rather than Payne Haas, the choice of Channel Nine, the publisher of this masthead. Haas was the second choice of the players.
Lomax also carried the ball forward, sometimes twice in one set, tackled desperately, dived on a loose ball to defuse a Maroons kick on the NSW line, kicked off and even attempted to convert the match-sealing try he initiated after leaping for the ball as if his feet were spring-loaded.
He did all this while playing on the wing, a position he hated so much that he transferred to Parramatta from the Dragons in the hope he could play centre.
Someone other than Nathan Cleary had to try and kick goals after the usually accurate
halfback failed with three attempts, and declined two even easier kicks.
Isaah Yeo is tackled by Patrick Carrigan as he takes another strong carry.Credit: Getty Images
One Cleary kick sailed so far to the left it seemed the ball wanted to join the voters at the recent federal election. The Blues kicked butt but couldn’t kick goals, just one of the many outcomes in a match that defied expectations.
Surprisingly, NSW won the penalty count in Brisbane, a tally of 15 in a contest renowned for its low stoppages, including four in the first nine minutes. Nor did Cleary combine once with five-eighth Mitchell Moses, despite coach Laurie Daley’s intention to load up on the Blues’ left side.
Captain Isaah Yeo is a clever ball distributor but he rarely passed. He made ground with every
carry.
Normally an 80-minute player, Yeo was unnecessarily replaced for a 10-minute period and brought back to steady the Blues at the end. It appeared to be a rare intervention from the coaches in a match where the players decided to abandon the clinical read-and-react approach for which they had trained in their camp, and instead adopted a release-the-hounds attack.
After all, the sudden breaks and twists of fortune sometimes make it impossible to play with structure.
If Origin football is the jewel in rugby league’s crown, the opening match was a rough diamond. It briefly dazzled with its brilliance, and was exquisitely flawed. Mitchell’s swift catch and
pass to put To’o in for a try was a rare gem but even the mistakes were absorbing.
So NSW are now one up in the three-game series, with matches in Perth and Sydney. There have
been only five occasions in Origin’s celebrated history where the Blues have won in consecutive years but, after NSW won last year, it seems a sixth is coming.
The Cleary-Moses partnership will improve with another game. Moses could have run more but his long kicks saved his teammates so much energy.
Cleary maintained his composure, despite his poor goal-kicking, which would have provided a comfortable buffer throughout.
Five years ago, it would have obsessed him. Yet he was still probing at the end, able to process the kaleidoscope of the play, to probe the whirling geometry of the Maroons defence.
Queensland fullback Kalyn Ponga was dangerous, covering a freeway of territory in attack but it seems the Maroons can’t improve to the extent the Blues are capable.
State of Origin? State of Bliss if you are a New South Welshman.
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