Blues on the cusp of back-to-back Origin success
Murray Wenzel and Scott Bailey |
NSW are 80 minutes away from back-to-back State of Origin series wins after the Blues’ forwards set the platform for a historic 18-6 win at Suncorp Stadium.
The Blues dominated Queensland on Wednesday night, with only missed conversions from all four tries stopping the scoreline from blowing out.
After winning last year’s decider in Brisbane, the victory marked the first time the Blues have breached the Suncorp fortress in successive games in 27 years.
NSW have also now won three straight games for the first time in 19 years, after coming back from 1-0 down in last year’s series.
But of most importance to the Blues is they can now win this year’s series in Perth on June 18, with another chance to come in Sydney three weeks later.
“Any time you can come here and win you’ve got to be happy, so extremely happy,” Blues coach Laurie Daley said.
“But it’s only camp one. We’ll see what (Queensland) are like when they bounce into game two.
“Because one thing I know about Origin is there’s always a response. You get hit in the face, there’s a response next game.”
For all their dominance, NSW were still made to sweat for their win.
After leading 14-0 just before the break, they lost Brian To’o to the sin-bin on the stroke of halftime when he tackled Xavier Coates in midair as the Maroons winger attempted to plant a try.
There was no penalty try but it did leave the Blues exposed, beginning the second half.
They looked up to the task when six men bundled Valentine Holmes into touch.
But from the next play Coates scored, Jeremiah Nanai’s pinpoint hit on Latrell Mitchell sending the ball loose and the Maroons pouncing.
At 14-6 it was still anyone’s game, both sides error-riddled under fatigue as the quality descended.
Two-try hero Zac Lomax and Connor Watson combined to produce the moment, both somehow popping offloads in tackles allowing Dylan Edwards to score the clincher with eight minutes to play.
Halves Mitchell Moses and Nathan Cleary clicked in their partnership debut for NSW while Stephen Crichton shrugged off his early-week injury crisis.
Mitchell was also immense in his Origin return at centre.
That was all made possible by a dominant Blues pack, with man-of-the-match Payne Haas topping 150 metres after barely training on a quad tear in the build up.
“For a big bloke and limited prep to jump out of the ground and do what he did was inspirational,” Daley said.
The Blues’ go-forward quietened the capacity crowd in the first half, with the Maroons giving away three ruck penalties inside the first 10 minutes to gift the visitors field position.
Harry Grant was ineffective at hooker while Pat Carrigan missed five tackles and had the Maroons pack’s only tackle break at half-time, compared to 12 from the Blues forwards.
“They were much better than us. I feel pretty flat to be honest about our performance,” Queensland coach Billy Slater said.
“The flatness comes from how we hurt ourselves. Very ill disciplined in the first half, and then that just snowballed against us.”
Queensland have now scored just one try in their last two games at Suncorp, with that coming when the Blues were down a man on Wednesday.
“That’s not good. That’s not a good stat,” Slater said.
“Probably as disappointing as the performance tonight.”
NSW’s dominance didn’t show on the scoreboard until later in the half on Wednesday, with Haas breaking the line and offloading before Lomax scored.
To’o crossed four minutes later, Mitchell’s brilliant, mid-air offload setting that try up before a slick left-to-right movement allowed Lomax to score his second.
AAP
