Origin Analysis: DCE outsmarts Cleary as Fittler fails to adapt Penrith plan

It’s another #Queenslander, backs to the wall, against the odds, guts and glory victory for the Maroons.

That spirit, eh, it’s a wonderful thing. Well…maybe. A little bit. They do have a fair crack. The Blues have a decent crack too, but let’s not talk about that.

Spirit might come from the heart but brains were the difference tonight. Brains, and experience, because Daly Cherry-Evans was the difference between the sides.

There’s hat tips to Kalyn Ponga, so elegant in attack, and Ben Hunt of course, with an honourable mention for Pat Carrigan, all effort and intent through the middle, but they the definitive influence on the location of the shield was the man in the No.7 jersey.

His kicking, specifically his long kicking, defined where the game was played and thus where the battle took place. When the Blues got in the Maroons’ end, they looked a million dollars: they just didn’t get there anywhere near often enough, especially after the break.

At the time when they should have been enjoying a massive fatigue advantage against a Queensland side two men down through HIAs – one more than the Blues – they were burning through the tank taking hit ups and defending for their lives.

Cherry-Evans mentioned this in the post-match presser. According to the captain, when the three players went down in the hectic opening stages, he told his teammates that composure was the key.

“The main message was that we felt that the team that remained the calmest was going to win,” said DCE. “The team that reverted back to playing footy was going to win.”

“There were so many things out there that changed the game, from head knocks to sin bins, and those things can really impact a game of footy. The team that comes out playing a smarter game…we did that.

“We played a style of footy that wore them down in the end.”

His coach agreed, and handed out special praise to Hunt, who exemplified both the smarts and the willing of the Maroons, never less than his late, match-sealing charge down try.

“It was a unique game,” said Billy Slater. “We lost two and Cam Murray went down. I don’t know if I’ve seen a start to a game like that before. It showed just how much commitment both sides were willing to put on the line.

“It was a courageous effort: we only used one other interchange other than those two forced ones in that first half. We knew that was going to take a fair bit of petrol out of our tank.

“He was out on his feet half way through the second half, he was one of those guys in the middle doing all that work and we needed to give him a rest. I feel if we didn’t he might not have got there in the end.

“But what a performance. He’s a great competitor, one of the greatest competitors our game has seen. If someone was going to come up with a play like that, it was going to be Ben Hunt.

“He just competes and ended up with the football, and had enough legs to outrun Isaah Yeo who had done enough work himself. It was an incredible moment.”

Let’s cycle back to that start. This was a remarkably difficult game to write about, especially in the first half.

Usually, that’s because not much is happening and you have to overanalyse what goes on, but this was the opposite: there was so much happening that it was hard to catch up.

Actually, let’s rephrase that. There was nothing really happening to analyse, but there were lots of good footy things happening, and fast. Like really fast.

The first ten minutes concussionathon brought new meaning to the ‘traditional softening up period’ cliché. A game that was likely to be decided partly by interchange policies was wrecked by it, at least as far as plans went, because Queensland lost two and NSW lost one.

Lindsay Collins was perhaps the player that Queensland could least afford to lose: Josh Papalii had managed fewer than 30 minutes in both Origin games so far and now he was going to have to play much longer.

That told in the first half, with NSW marching up field in the set that led to Jarome Luai’s try through a series of smart ruck manipulations from Api Koroisau that targeted the Raiders prop.

In a lot of ways, the game went in the same manner as the two that had preceded it, just faster. The Maroons were able to keep with the grind through clever kicking, but when they slipped in that, they tended to struggle.

Ben Hunt from dummy half and Daly Cherry-Evans – he of the highest number of long kicks to space in the NRL – going early in the tackle count to gain with the boot what they couldn’t with the footy in hand.

The attack didn’t often follow it up, but the field position, until the 20^th minute, did. The NSW right edge defence, identified as a target before the game, coughed up the expected points as well via a weak tackle from Stephen Crichton.

It was the first Blues try, while Papali’I was still on the field, that saw the momentum shift. Once the Blues got a sniff, they dominated: 63% possession from 20 minutes through to the break, scoring 12 points in the process.

It was pure Penrith stuff. Koroisau was the best on the field, moving the markers around effortlessly, while Nathan Cleary and Isaah Yeo schemed off the back.

Above everything, it was the patience of it all. The lack of urgency, almost, based so much on the confidence that they would eventually score. When Jacob Saifiti did, it looked easy, but nothing in this arena is.

The difference between Queensland’s end to the second half and the Blues’ persistent field position issues in the middle of the second half was pointed.

Cherry-Evans and Hunt were happy to sacrifice possession for territory, moving the ball up the field and backing the defence to keep the Blues in.

When the pressure was on the Blues, they tried to flair their way out of it, resuting in a series on unforced errors. Their completion rate went from 86% in the first half to 63% in the second, despite most of the game being played deep in their end.

From the 55^th to 75^th minute, the Maroons had 23 tackles in the Blues end to just 1 in their own. Brian To’o had 11 runs in the second half for 78m, or seven metres per run, which is well down on his average, because they were the hardest carries imaginable.

This was not the time to play your way out of trouble, but the less experienced players – notably Siosifa Talakai and Stephen Crichton – tried it anyway. Unforced errors come because minds are frazzled.

The NSW defence was superb and kept Queensland out, but it narrowed the fatigue gap: had the Blues been able to exert even a modicum of pressure back the other way, they surely would have scored.

The system is built on transitional play from the back three and spreading when possible, but it proved unable to shift in tenor when the game situation required it.

Cleary is probably a better halfback than Cherry-Evans, but he is, currently, lightyears behind in experience when compared to the oldest man on the field, especially when that man is stood next to Ben Hunt, himself also one of the most experienced out there.

In the end, that was the difference. DCE kicked for 650m, twice the numbers of Cleary, despite only taking two more kicks. Hunt only kicked twice, but one turned James Tedesco around early in the tackle count and the other was a 40/20.

The Maroons had tried this tactic in the previous two games, but when they knew that they had 15 men for the rest of the game, they leaned into it even more.

I’m not sure if it’s a failing of Cleary not to adapt, or of Brad Fittler not to know that it was time to get the message out to adapt the plan. I’d err towards the latter.

With Matt Burton on the field, they could have set up one of the best long boots in the game, but seemed intent on bashing their way out of trouble. That’s on the man sending instructions.

Burton sent up one of his trademark bombs that gave Ponga palpitations, and then it was never seen again.

Fittler has been quoted many times have playing to the Panthers’ system. Penrith’s plan is a good one, but rarely do they ever have to play from behind. The Blues got stuck spinning their wheels against a set defence that could aim up.

Cherry-Evans, on the other hand, knew that with fewer men in the forwards, the definitive factor for his side would be where the game was played rather than who had the ball.

In the end, he was right.