The NSW Blues have taken a handy 18-6 lead over the Queensland Maroons into halftime of Origin 2.
For the second game in a row, the Blues opened the scoring, Tom Trbojevic outleaping Kalyn Ponga after James Maloney sent a high bomb to the in-goal area.
Earlier, Trbojevic had crossed the line but wasn’t able to ground the ball under physical attention from four Queensland defenders.
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From the restart, Josh Addo-Carr almost made Kalyn Ponga pay for just watching the ball roll out from a kick, but wasn’t able to get a hand on it before it crossed the dead-ball line.
Queensland had a good chance of their own in the seventh minute after a superb kick from Daly Cherry-Evans, but some tricky bounces saw the ball elude both Will Chambers and James Tedesco. But they didn’t have to wait much longer to get on the board, Gerard Sutton and the Bunker officials ruling Jack Wighton had impeded Chambers to the point of clearly denying the Maroons centre a try.
Making matters worse for the Blues was Boyd Cornder being forced from the field for an HIA at the same time, although the skipper was able to return later in the half.
The frenetic first half didn’t let up after that, with Tyson Frizell just managing to hold onto the ball and crash over the line for the Blues’ second try of the game with 23 minutes gone. Nathan Cleary nailed his second conversion of the night to make it 12-6.
Maloney added to his two try assists right after with a superb 40-20, but NSW couldn’t make the excellent field position count as Dale Finucane knocked on as torrential rain poured down.
Unfortunately for Brad Fittler, Blake Ferguson made the same error off Queensland’s next clearing kick, dropping a ball cold on his own ten. But the Parramatta man made good on his mistake, forcing Corey Oates into touch in the ensuing set.
NSW thought they had another try nine minutes before the break, but Maloney’s floating pass to Josh Addo-Carr was ruled to have been forward out of the hands, and a certain four-pointer went begging.
But just four minutes later they were in again, and there was no denying Trbojevic his second of the night on his Origin return. James Tedesco made a superb run down the right channel before offloading to Tommy Turbo in support, allowing the makeshift centre to cross under the posts untouched.
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