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Victory in a dead rubber proves nothing. The series was lost, the win is meaningless, the consolation is no consolation at all.
Queensland have won ten of the last 11 series and a last-gasp victory in a game that New South Wales dominated but still almost lost won’t change that – in fact this victory may well lead to further pain down the track, as it helps once again mask the inadequacies of the Blues’ operation.
Yes, all this is true.
But for the love of god, let us celebrate. Let us rejoice. Let we of the benighted south turn our faces upward and, finding for one brief beautiful moment a shaft of sunlight to warm our skin, bask in it for just a little while before the cold and the dark return.
Such is the gruesome pessimism that has been ingrained in the NSW fan over so many years, the split-second of euphoria triggered by a result like this week’s is followed by lengthy, despondent moans as we convince ourselves that even when we win, we lose.
Queensland has broken us in body and soul. Strike them down and they will become more powerful than we could possibly imagine. Didn’t we see the proof of that last year, when a glorious victory in Game 2 served to do nothing but spark the Maroons into a terrifying obliteration of all our hopes and dreams? The lesson was surely learnt: don’t beat Queensland, it only makes them angry.
But dammit, we have to resist this line of thinking. It’s all very well to be defeatist when assessing the likely outcome of a game, but we can’t let ourselves be defeatist when deciding whether to be happy when that outcome arrives.
Even New South Welshpeople have a right to occasional happiness, and I’m standing up for that right today and saying, fearlessly and joyously, “Wednesday night was a great triumph, let joy be unconfined, for the game was won and glory was attained.”
Obviously it’s not true that there is ‘no such thing as a dead rubber’ – I know, because there just was one – but a dead rubber is still an Origin game. It’s still part of the eternal struggle between good and evil that State of Origin represents, the battle between forces of light (us) and darkness (Queensland) that has been waged since the beginning of time, but especially since 1980.
Every Origin game means something. Every Origin game is important. There are those of us who would happily and with disturbing enthusiasm kill for the chance to play just one Origin game, and if it were a dead rubber we’d commit that murder just as willingly. Some players do get to play only one Origin game, and for some of them that game is a dead rubber, and they know that that game mattered an awful lot.
Queensland fought like tigers in Game 3. They defended the line with furious and intense passion, as if it were not only a live rubber, but they’d been told that if they lost the game they’d all be forcibly traded to the Knights. Yes, they got a fair bit of help from a NSW team that has for ten years stuck reliably to the twin maxims, ‘when in doubt, throw the ball to a prop and have him charge mindlessly at the line’, and ‘when still in doubt, throw the ball over the sideline’.
But it was still admirable the way they fought to keep their line intact. Their ferocity nearly paid off.
And it nearly paid off in the most Queenslandy of ways – a miracle try conjured up at the death. Every Blues supporter felt Darius Boyd’s try like a knife in the gut, because we’ve seen that movie what seems like a thousand times before. Whether it’s Boyd, Mark Coyne, Darren Lockyer or Tonie Carroll, the sight of a Queenslander bolting across the line in the dying minutes and carrying away a dream we’d barely dared to believe in is imprinted on the inside of our eyelids and a constant subject of discussions between us and our therapists.
So can you try to imagine how much it meant to see Michael Jennings jink and dash his way over with the seconds ticking down? That alien sensation of seeing a man in blue scoring the miracle try for once? The wondrous sight of Queensland, for once, Queenslanded?
They shouldn’t have needed that try. They should have wrapped the game up earlier. They had some luck, in part from friendly referees and in even larger part from a Queensland team that seemed to take as a personal affront any suggestion that they should play within the rules of rugby league. The series was already lost, and this was not a victory that spoke of a mighty team set to embark on a new era of dominance.
But by God, it was a magnificent one. Let us fret another time about what it means in the long term. For now, all that matters is an Origin was won, and that is always, always, occasion to let cheers resound throughout the land.