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The story of State of Origin so far has been the injuries in the NSW camp, but a scare has gone through the Queensland camp with Cameron Munster limping out of Melbourne’s 48-16 Magic Round victory over Parramatta with a reoccurrence of the groin injury that kept him out earlier in the season.
Munster is set for scans to determine the extent of the injury, with both Storm coach Craig Bellamy and Maroons counterpart Billy Slater waiting anxiously for results.
The Storm star missed several weeks earlier in the season with a groin complaint and has been open that it is far from completely healed, admitting that he has been playing through the injury.
Melbourne adapted well to the loss of Munster, even though that required shifting Grant Anderson, an outside back, to five eighth alongside Tyran Wishart, himself a stand-in, at halfback.
The score was 16-10 when Munster departed, but Parra did not add a point until the final stages while the Storm, led superbly by Harry Grant and Sua Fa’alogo, piled on the pain for the Eels, who have now won once in seven outings.
Xavier Coates on the wing was also excellent, scoring a spectacular long-range try, and Elie Katoa remains a revelation in the back row.
Brad Arthur called his side embarrassing, but insists that he was up for the fight despite ongoing speculation over his future.
“It’s going to be the same but I’ll never walk away from a fight and we’re going to keep fighting hard,” said of the mounting pressure.
“Nothing is fair in our game.
“We can’t be sooks about it, we just got to get on with it and we can only go on the fact and the facts are is we aren’t playing good enough and I’m the coach of the team and we’ve got to do something about it.”
Munster’s injury, unfortunately, will overshadow this result. He was seen writhing in pain towards the end of the first half with what appeared to be spasms from his upper leg.
He appeared to overextend his groin attempting to fight for the ball on the ground and, shortly afterwards, dropped to the turf in obvious discomfort.
For Slater and the Maroons, it will be a major blow if Munster is down again.
They have been largely unscathed at a time when NSW players are dropping like flies, with only Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, who did his ACL very early in the year, and Kalyn Ponga, who may not have featured anyway, missing.
Meanwhile the Blues have lost walk-up starters in Nathan Cleary, Tom Trbojevic and Cameron Murray as well as incumbent centre Bradman Best and halfback option Mitchell Moses ahead of Michael Maguire’s first selection.
The Storm can ill afford to lose Munster, too. They are already without Ryan Papenhuyzen and Jahrome Hughes from their spine.
With so many missing – Parramatta were also without two of their best, Moses and Clint Gutherson – it was on the lesser lights to shine, and both sides saw youngsters step up.
Blaize Talagi, deputising for Gutherson, was exceptional in the first half, scoring a try to bring Parra back within shouting distance, laying one on for Maika Sivo late and showing strong defensive instincts to keep the Storm at bay.
His high take above Xavier Coates was the sort of effort play that Gutho has made a career from, putting his body on the line and collecting a massive cut in the process as the pair clashed heads. Coates, for his part, left with a HIA.
At the other end, Sua Fa’alogo continues to live up to his promise with another incisive performance.
Parra never got to grips with his speed and elusiveness, with the fullback laying on three line breaks in the first hour to bust the game open every time the Eels looked like getting a foothold back in the game.
Though the game was shorn of some of the biggest names these two clubs have to offer, the two remaining superstars – Harry Grant and Dylan Brown – delivered.
Brown laid on Talagi’s try and, along with his young fullback, was one of the few Eels to emerge with credit in a side that, bar a brief revival inspired by the Kiwi half, was always clinging on to be competitive.
Grant, meanwhile, remains crucial for Melbourne and was the outstanding player on ground tonight.
Once Parra’s middles tired – and you can set your watch to that – he was out from dummy half immediately.
Grant was far too smart for Parramatta, winning set restarts and finding slack defenders in the line en route to two tries and multiple line break assists.
He was also too smart for his own good, too, getting pinged again for passing the ball at a downed opponent, but when that part of his game comes with so much good, one suspects Bellamy will cop it.
Though the Eels did give the impression of a competitive side at times, their inability to be effective over the 80 minutes remains their biggest issue.
It had appeared as if Arthur had found a sticking plaster with Junior Paulo starting from the bench and Joe Ofahengaue joining the run on, but it has had little effect in the long run.
Teams still know that they can wait out Parra’s middle and cash in late. This game could not have been a better example of it.