With Queensland’s raft of stars stacked strongly against whomever New South Wales can pick, State of Origin runs the risk of boredom.
While there’s always something exciting about the first few minutes of the series, on the whole I found Origin 1 and 2 less exciting than most regular NRL games this year.
Given the Maroons contain a good three-quarters of the Kangaroos, it’s almost a foregone conclusion that Queensland are going to come home with the shield until Johnathan Thurston’s generation retires.
Yet dead rubbers have the potential to bring out a new kind of intensity from both sides.
More Origin:
» Five talking points from State of Origin 3
» Blues’ dead rubber win is a celebration for Queenslanders in the know
» The Liebke Ratings: State of Origin Game 3
» State of Origin Game 3 player ratings: Queensland
» State of Origin Game 3 player ratings: New South Wales
Wednesday night’s match had particularly high stakes, with Corey Parker and Paul Gallen set to retire, and both sides eager to send their veterans out as winners.
At the same time, dead rubbers intensify the characteristics of both teams: they whet the Maroons’ thirst for dominance and the Blues’ thirst for retaliation.
Combined with the departure of two storied veterans and a series of questionable calls from the referees, that made for pure Origin entertainment at ANZ.
Nearly everyone on the field was on the verge of a biff or a brainsnap, so it was only a matter of time before someone crossed the line.
In all the Origins I’ve watched, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a moment of pure insanity to rival Andrew Fifita’s lunge at Gavin Cooper towards the end of the second half. A good minute or so after the try had been scored and the fracas broken out, Fifita dashed over and tackled Cooper like he was still aiming for an intercept.
Fifita wasn’t the only person sin-binned, with Cooper Cronk sent off at the climax of a relentless assault on the Queensland line by a Blues attack that seemed to be gifted penalty after penalty.
As Cronk left the field, we witnessed something we rarely see from Cameron Smith and Johnathan Thurston: anxiety.
You could see it in Thurston’s eyes as he hastily communicated his game plan to Cronk; you could see it in the slightly hysterical politeness with which Smith tried to remonstrate with the referee.
At the same time, you couldn’t fault the Maroons. Despite a staggering succession of sets – and in the back half of the opening 40 – the Blues never broke the Queensland line.
The Maroons have to be about the only rugby league team that can look utterly exhausted but still hold up their defence across a 20-minute pummelling.
Even in the direst circumstances, they have a momentum and synergy unlike anything else I’ve ever seen in rugby league – a sense of being totally amped up and high on adrenaline that allows a player like Greg Inglis to utterly transform under Origin conditions.
If New South Wales want to match that energy and entertainment, they need to find it in their younger players – and the Blues debutantes shone.
With so much hype surrounding James Tedesco at fullback, it was hard to believe he wouldn’t stamp his signature on the game.
Over the first half, he racked up impressive yardage and put in some brilliant kick returns, but it was his mad dash for the try line at the 78th minute that really provided a platform for the game’s most innovative and improvisational custodian to show his stuff.
In the end, it turned out to be the game’s best try assist rather than the game’s best try, but despite Michael Jennings being the one to plant it over the line, it felt like a Teddy try in spirit – and the Blues seem to recognise as much, clustering around their fullback before Jenko had got up from the ground.
If Tedesco defined the final minutes of the game, then Tyson Frizell defined the opening half, bringing in the first try of the night for New South Wales and the second four-pointer in his short Origin career.
From the outset, he was the only big man on the Blues side who managed to match the momentum, adrenalin and conviction of the Queensland forwards, busting through the defence with an intensity and drive that paired Jason Taumalolo’s uncanny ability to make metres after contact with Josh Papaliii’s determination to seek out danger wherever he can find it.
In other words, Frizell played like a Queenslander, creating an incredible Maroon-on-Maroon intensity whenever he came up against the Cane Toads’ forwards.
Watching him, I realised how much more energy big men like Aaron Woods and James Tamou need to bring to their game: it’s not enough to have the body, you need to have the adrenaline to go with it.
Only Josh Mansour came close to rivalling Frizell’s energy, so it was heartbreaking to see Darius Boyd get one past him in the 76th minute – but equally exhilarating to see Teddy and Jennings hand Mansour a ‘get out of jail free’ card moments later.
As if to acknowledge the spectacle of it all, the Blues chose to have Gallen kick his one and only Origin conversion on the stroke of fulltime, in one of the sendoffs since the inception of the series.
Between Teddy’s final run and Gal’s final kick, the last couple of minutes of the 2016 series were a turning point in the evolution of the Blues.
After all, as Gus Gould pointed out, Wednesday night was the birth of a new Origin fullback and a new Blues era, which is perhaps why it felt like New South Wales really held sway in the post-game coverage, despite the fact that Smith took home the all-round player medal.
While Josh McGuire’s Twitter brag and subsequent bounce of the Steeden off Moylan’s head may have been designed to taunt the Blues, it actually had the opposite effect.
Sure, it may have been responsible for Fifita’s brainsnap, but it also seems to have pushed New South Wales’ young guns to endure, evolve and entertain in a new way.
Here’s hoping the Blues’ performance is just the first taste of a new era of Origin spectacle and entertainment.
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