The legacy Maroons must learn from or perish in Perth

Joel Gould | June 17, 2025

Queensland’s 16th and newest captain Cameron Munster wants to apply the champion attributes of the great Cameron Smith to resurrect his side’s State of Origin hopes.

The Maroons play NSW in Perth on Wednesday night in game two of the Origin series as they aim for their first win in the Western Australia capital.

They played dumb football in the 18-6 loss to the Blues at Suncorp Stadium in game one. The Maroons were ill-disciplined, defensively fragile and lacking in a clear attacking plan.

Smith, who captained the Maroons to six series wins out of seven in a stellar career, was always a step ahead of NSW in planning and performance.

Munster made his Origin debut under Smith and won two NRL titles (2017 and 2020) at Melbourne when the maestro was skipper. 

It is why he deferred to the retired champion when asked what kind of captain he wanted to be after becoming the new skipper in the wake of the Maroons’ third consecutive Origin loss. 

“I couldn’t go past Cameron Smith. He led in all the right directions,” Munster said.

“There’s a reason why he’s played 42 games for Queensland and I don’t think anyone’s ever going to beat that record.

“It’s pretty special and he’s a lifetime kind of generational player. 

“Everyone talks about x-factor. He didn’t have the x-factor but he had the capacity to be able to break teams down with his mind and his smarts.

“You don’t really get those blokes in rugby league anymore.”

The “smarts” Munster referred to, so typical of a Smith display, were missing in game one as the Maroons gave away penalties early, missed key tackles and did not have an attacking plan or structure to break down their opponents.

Coach Billy Slater has made changes and elevated Melbourne forward Trent Loiero to the starting side after he came off the bench in game one.

Loiero has been guilty at the Storm of ill-discipline, as he was in the Magic Round loss to Canberra when giving away late penalties. 

Touted as an “enforcer”, he said the Maroons must play with Smith-like smarts.

“It’s a physical game. You need to be physical, but by the same token it’s not all argy-bargy,” Loiero said.

“You’ve got to be able to play with a bit of brains, and we didn’t do that last game. We played a bit silly, made a few dumb mistakes and gave away a few stupid penalties. That ended up hurting us, and we’ve done our review and we’ll be writing our wrongs.”

That sentiment would be music to Smith’s ears, so long as the Maroons follow through.

“We did our review and (Slater) was pretty stern as he should be. We were stern with each other,” Loiero said.

“There were a few hard conversations as there should be after a hard loss. We’ve learned our lessons, and we’ll be looking to move forward in game two. 

“To play this game, everyone’s got to have that aggression. You have to be tough to play rugby league so it’s in all of us.

“But I think you’ve got to use it in the right way. As a team we’ve got to use it in the right way together. We’ll get the best out of each other if we do it together.”