Opinion
State of Origin means more to Queensland.
If you doubt this, take two or three steps into the Caxton Hotel car park on Origin game day wearing any shade of the colour blue.
If that’s not enough to convince you, compare the ferocity of the Maroons’ performance on home soil, to the relatively insipid performance delivered by NSW on their home turf 5 weeks earlier.
See, playing at home on sacred ground brings something different out of Queenslanders. Something you can’t coach, something you certainly can’t engineer. It’s something inherent in that Maroon DNA, something that has been passed down through the generations among those north of the Tweed.
Since the rep retirements of Cameron Smith, Johnathan Thurston and Cooper Cronk at the end of 2017, NSW have fielded a superior side on paper in every single series. NSW have also been short priced favourites with the bookies in every one of those series. And yet in that time, Queensland have come away with two series victories.
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
Why? Well for a start, those two winning series (in 2020 and 2022) saw the decider being played at Suncorp Stadium. The Maroons are not human at Suncorp Stadium.
This is because Origin means more to Queensland, and playing on home turf causes each Queensland player to grow an extra leg.
But the elephant in the room here, is the absence of two particular New South Welshmen in both of those losing series.
Before we look at the two losing series’ however, let’s go right back to the start of the post Smith, Thurston and Cronk era.
It’s 2018. Brad Fittler promises a new dawn for NSW and picks a team of young hotshots, untried at Origin level but also not carrying the scars of past defeats. The two “hottest” prospects of the bunch, are Tom Trbojevic and Latrell Mitchell.
In Game 1 of that series, Queensland started the better of the two teams. Going into the sheds at half time, NSW carried a slender lead but the game was very much in the balance, and past experience warned the average punter that a slender lead was often not good enough to come over the top of mighty Queensland.
But the average punter didn’t know how good Tom Trbojevic and Latrell Mitchell were. In the space of three minutes in the second half , Mitchell and Trbojevic scored brilliant individual tries (with Trbojevic leaping over Valentine Holmes like he was a traffic cone to score one of the great aerial Origin tries) to put NSW firmly in the drivers seat.
The Blues win Game 1 and go on to win the series. Both players were also immense in Game 2 and Trbojevic scored a remarkable 95m intercept try in Game 3 in a contest that saw NSW lose only by the skin of their teeth.
The following year in 2019, Trbojevic missed the series opener and Latrell, well Latrell didn’t have his best night in Game 1. Suffice to say NSW lost that game and Latrell was dropped for Game 2.
While not a direct replacement for Mitchell, Tom Trbojevic returned for the Blues at right centre that night and scored three tries in monsoon like rain. NSW win by a lot and the series goes to a decider in Sydney.
Tom Trbojevic. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
With momentum firmly with the Blues, NSW are able to overcome a spirited Queensland (thanks largely to one of the great Origin performances from James Tedesco) to claim their second straight series.
By the time the 2020 series rolls around, some 16 odd months after it’s predecessor (thanks to COVID-19), no one really batted an eyelid at the fact the Blues were without Tom Trbojevic and Latrell Mitchell due to injury.
After all, Mitchell didn’t play Games’ 2 and 3 the year before and the Blues new centre pairing – Jack Wighton and Clint Gutherson – had just come first and second respectively in the Dally M count.
But NSW lost. A hungover Cameron Munster delivered arguably the greatest individual Origin performance ever in the decider to seal a remarkable series victory for what was famously dubbed “the worst Queensland side of all time”.
Now 2021 is where it gets really interesting. And I’ll keep this short and sharp. Latrell Mitchell and Tom Trbojevic are back. They are the NSW centres.
In Game 1 at Queensland Country Bank Stadium in Townsville, they score five tries between them. The Blues win 50-6.
In Game 2 at the furnace that is Suncorp Stadium, the momentum was firmly with Queensland until a remarkable piece of skill, awareness and aggression from Mitchell saw the South Sydney megastar steal the ball from Maroons winger Kyle Feldt.
Two plays later, NSW shift the ball to the right and open the scoring through Josh Addo-Carr.
Later in the first half, Queensland are peppering the Blues’ try line searching for a break through when what happens? That man again, Latrell Mitchell, snatches a Valentine Holmes bullet pass out of the air like it’s nothing and races 85m to score. Game, set, match.
(Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)
Trbojevic? He scored one himself that night too and generally wreaked havoc on Queensland whenever he touched the ball. Full time: NSW 26, Queensland 0. At Suncorp Stadium.
In two games, Mitchell and Trbojevic inspired NSW to score 76 points in Queensland. On the Maroons sacred turf.
Why? Because even though State of Origin means more to Queensland, desire, heart and passion can only really get you so far. In 2020 and now 2022, those attributes were enough to get Queensland over the line.
But that’s because in 2020 and 2022, Latrell Mitchell and Tom Trbojevic weren’t on the other team.
It’s time to realise that these two absolute superstars, these two generational talents, have carried NSW for the past five years.
Yes, James Tedesco has been incredible. Nathan Cleary has had his moments.
But when it really comes down to it, the difference has been Tommy and Latrell.
Let’s just hope at least one of them is back playing for the Blues next year.
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