The post-match headlines were dominated by the flying fists of Dane Gagai and Matt Burton, the concussions in the opening minutes and Ben Hunt’s little legs lugging Queensland to a memorable State of Origin victory.
But beneath all of that, NSW butchered a game of football.
Even if you factor in recency bias, game three of last year’s series might be the best Origin game ever played. But what were the lessons for Brad Fittler and his NSW Blues out of the 22-12 defeat in the decider few gave Queensland had a chance of winning?
These are the five lessons the Blues must heed to ensure a winning start to this year’s series in Adelaide on Wednesday.
Bully boys
If Matt Burton was the most talented kid in the schoolyard, then Tino Fa’asuamaleaui was the biggest, and the Gold Coast enforcer made it his mission to ensure sheer brutality won out.
After Burton’s superb Origin debut in game two last year, it was clear the Maroons had a mission for the series decider: bash him out of the game.
From his first carry, when five defenders converged on him from all angles, to Fa’asuamaleaui and Josh Papali’i roughing him up in an early scuffle and the former then being lucky to escape a sin bin with a savage high shot, there was a mission to make Burton squirm.
And that was before an exchange of punches with Dane Gagai precipitated a wild brawl, with Fa’asuamaleaui grabbing Burton in a headlock and the sin-bin returning to Origin.
“I think we just took a backward step,” Blues back-rower Liam Martin says. “We sort of didn’t stand up for ourselves as a forward pack. That was probably the biggest drama there. We won’t be doing that again.”
Bullied?
“I don’t think so,” NSW captain James Tedesco says. “That’s not what I took out of it. “There was a lot of aggression and fire, but that’s a standard Origin game. I don’t think we were bullied. There was the one altercation [with Burton] but that’s pretty normal for that game. I look at our pack this year, it’s an aggressive, fiery pack, so I’m looking forward to them getting out there.”
In comes noted firebrands Tevita Pangai jnr and Hudson Young for their Origin debuts, but does it automatically guarantee NSW will be the aggressors in Adelaide?
Brad Fittler’s adviser Greg Alexander argues the red mist focus has been a tad overblown in the build-up.
“Absolutely [it has been],” he says. “I’ve heard descriptions of how they’re wild players. Well, no, not really. There’s been moments through their careers, but [they’re not loose cannons].”
Three on one: Tino Fa’asuamaleaui and the Maroons got stuck into Matt Burton in last year’s Origin decider.
Watch the shift early
Andrew Johns is the biggest advocate for this play – to make metres out of your own end, don’t be afraid to shift the ball wide.
And Queensland did it perfectly to relieve the pressure in the frantic opening half of last year’s decider.
While the Blues were content with hit-ups and one pass off the ruck to make yardage in the opening 15 minutes, allowing the Maroons defence to swarm and limit their carries, Maroons coach Billy Slater urged his side to play out of their own end.
It resulted in Jeremiah Nanai and Kurt Capewell combining for a break down the right inside the first 11 minutes, and then Capewell again picking up easy metres just before half-time when they rifled it across the field inside their own 20 metres with fullback Kalyn Ponga, winger Dane Gagai and halfback Daly Cherry-Evans all combining.
It’s a tactic Fittler will be aware of before this year’s series and NSW prop Junior Paulo insists it’s up to every man to try to dominate their own individual battle in that part of the field.
“All you need to do is get over your position and then it gives you a bit of an advantage on how the scoreboard goes,” he says. “And you never want to lose those battles.”
… and the early kick
It’s one of the oldest tricks in the Origin book: kick early, kick long and kick the opposition to death. Nathan Cleary loves it.
But on the biggest stage last year, the Queensland playmakers beat him to the punch with a series of kicks early in the tackle count which turned NSW’s tiring forwards around and allowed the Maroons to scrap their way to a famous win.
Hunt started it with a fourth-tackle kick from dummy-half inside the first two minutes, giving Queensland the upper hand territorially for the subsequent sets. Tone set.
He then pulled off a 40-20 on an early tackle which swung the momentum Queensland’s way before the most outrageous of the lot, Cherry-Evans hoofing the ball downfield after just two tackles in one set when the Maroons had hit the lead.
Johns called it a “brave, brave decision”. It was an Origin one, the right one.
Bang down the front door with the halves running
Api Koroisau’s art of deception around the ruck may have won him the nod over Damien Cook as NSW’s hooker, and there was a try last year which showed the golden path for the Blues.
Having had a string of possession in the first half and against tiring Queensland forwards, NSW halfback Nathan Cleary stepped off his right foot with the Blues deep on the attack and forced Pat Carrigan and Hunt to just drag him down.
“They’ve got to double up on those runs and go again,” Johns said in commentary, urging the Blues to make the Maroons’ middle collapse.
Looking left and then ducking out right, Koroisau did exactly that.
He skipped out, got debutant Jacob Saifiti to run a similar angle to Cleary back behind the ruck and the big man left Tom Gilbert and an exhausted Carrigan in his wake, with Hunt barely able to pick up his legs and make a covering effort from the other marker.
Cool heads in midst of the inferno
It was lost amid the hype of Hunt’s game-clinching try, the flying fists and the early concussions, but NSW’s second-half ball-handling was some of the most ham-fisted seen in Origin for years.
You could forgive one or two errors given the intensity of the occasion, but there was simply too many invitations for Queensland to ignore.
Saifiti didn’t play the ball correctly, Paulo lost the ball, Jarome Luai threw a pass over the sideline at his own end, Stephen Crichton threw an offload into his own in-goal, Siosifa Talakai played the ball incorrectly, then he dropped it close to his own line.
One mistake after another in the second half contributed to an awful 61 per cent completion rate for the Blues.
“I thought we just didn’t complete well and made a couple too many errors coming out of our own end,” Paulo says. “So that put us under a lot of pressure and you give any team that amount of ball, and especially with a quality pack like they were last year, they were going to capitalise on us.
“We were in it right until the end there until the Ben Hunt moment.”
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