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The Blues game plan produced Origin carnage. Here’s how Queensland combat it
By Dan Walsh
From the moment Lindsay Collins - the best front-rower of the past two Origin series - was buried beneath 330 kilos of prime Blues beef in the first tackle of game two, NSW were on top.
The most dominant opening half in Origin history and a 34-0 halftime advantage followed.
So too, another glass houses jibe from Michael Maguire, amateur Freudian analysis of Billy Slater’s press conferences and slowly but surely, rising anticipation for one hell of a series decider.
The Blues revamped side and tactics demolished rather than dismantled Queensland in Melbourne.
Now a win-at-all 80 minutes looms at Suncorp Stadium, and this is how the Maroons respond on their own turf.
The swarming sky blue
NSW hit both Collins and the right note from the opening kick-off, driving the Maroons big man back and repeating the dose with the next seven tackles they made.
For the first eight carries Queensland took at the MCG, the Blues had three defenders in every single tackle, duly slowing down the Maroons ruck with the physicality they just couldn’t sustain when down to 12 players in game one.
Queensland responded well enough to the defensive assault, shifting wide early with two-pass plays on both sides of the ruck to get over the advantage line.
The difference in those critical first five minutes was that while Queensland’s ball-runners were being bashed, the Blues got quick play-the-balls more often than not.
Payne Haas, Angus Crichton, Dylan Edwards, Brian To’o and Latrell Mitchell pushed through first contact with either extra post contact metres or quality ruck speed, with Crichton especially threatening on the left edge.
It was his seventh-minute run that again stretched Queensland’s defence, drew a high tackle from Lindsay Collins and four sets in a row before Liam Martin’s opening try. From there, the possession and field position simply snowballed.
The Maroons can swing wide again to negate a rushing, rumbling NSW defence, but have to match it themselves without the ball.
Left side, strong side
Crichton’s career-best game and Latrell Mitchell’s dominant return to the Origin arena made for three first-half tries in game two, and a defensive nightmare for Daly Cherry-Evans and Valentine Holmes.
Mitchell is out for NSW and while Bradman Best’s training has been hampered by injury this week, he’s in serious form and already in sync.
Best’s memorable, two-try Origin debut last year followed the same blueprint as he and Cody Walker kept Cherry-Evans in two minds right throughout the 2023 dead rubber.
Cody Walker sets up Bradman Best for a debut Origin try last year.Credit: NRL
Dane Gagai’s return, with Selwyn Cobbo outside him as Holmes switches to the left wing, is aimed at shoring up Queensland’s leaky right-edge. “Origin Gagai” is as good an option as any to do so.
The 33-year-old goes above and beyond his club form like few ever have in maroon. In Billy Slater’s first game as Queensland coach in 2022, a stunning 16-10 ANZ Stadium upset, Gagai’s defensive efforts on paper - 16 tackles and nine missed - deceived like nothing else.
Gagai may not have completed every tackle in that series opener.
But he consistently rushed in on Jarome Luai and Blues ball-players and either stifled the play enough for his cover defence to defuse it, or helped turn NSW back towards the middle.
With Crichton in such dominant form and Cherry-Evans susceptible when against bigger ball-runners like any half, the clash of Newcastle’s centres is worth the admission and a large popcorn alone.
The x-men and the bench factor
Both sides have match-winners across their spines and utility options. Queensland’s Reece Walsh, Ben Hunt/Harry Grant combo and Kalyn Ponga are more explosive than NSW counterparts Dylan Edwards, Reece Robson and Connor Watson though.
The superb kicking games of Cherry-Evans and Mitchell Moses almost cancel each other out, so too the running games of and playmaking nous of Luai and Tom Dearden.
All four can turn a contest in an instant and in Melbourne, the platform laid by the Blues forwards ensured only Moses and Luai got the chance.
If the decider is on an even keel, Moses’ game management faces the most withering test in rugby league. NSW has won just nine penalty counts in 60 Origins at Suncorp, and the game’s most hostile crowd will be into the officials and Blues No.7 from the outset.
The ‘flat-track bully’ critique of Moses still lingers - rightly or wrongly - but his kicking game at the MCG was as close to perfect as it gets.
The ruck speed generated by Haas, Cameron Murray and Isaah Yeo in Origin II went unmatched by Queensland, understandably so as possession mounted against them in the first half.
Spencer Leniu is an asset off the Blues bench on this front. His leg speed is the best in the NRL and invaluable against a tiring defensive line.
Grant and game three wildcard Kalyn Ponga work to different means and the same end as Slater’s bench options.
Kalyn Ponga is a scary proposition off Queensland’s bench.Credit: Getty
Grant’s prowess around the ruck, both sniffing out cheap metres and bringing ball-runners in behind the play-the-ball has been a regular threat throughout the past three series.
In Ponga’s last Origin - the 2022 decider on the same turf - he, Grant and Hunt progressively tortured NSW middle defenders as the contest wore on.
A similar roving role looms for Ponga off the bench. He nailed it to the wall in his 2018 Origin debut and with any sort of Maroons momentum, is odds on to break the Blues open at least once.
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