Origin legacies and futures on the line for NSW in decider

Source : ABC NEWS

You can twist up rugby league statistics any way you like to prove anything you want and State of Origin III is no exception.

For example, New South Wales — heavy and friendless outsiders for Wednesday’s decider — are currently enjoying their best run at Lang Park this century.

The Blues have won their last two matches in Brisbane, the only time they’ve gone back-to-back there since it re-opened in 2003.

Queensland have scored 10 points combined in those two games, their lowest two-match total in Brisbane in Origin history, and across those 160 minutes they have not created a try of their own with their sole four-pointer coming directly off a Blues error.

In isolation, it proves what New South Wales are capable of at their best. In context, as they stare down the barrel of a fourth series loss in five years, it’s just a reminder of how infrequently that seems to happen.

That failure to find the furthest reaches of their own abilities, more than anything else, is the defining theme heading into this year’s decider and of Laurie Daley’s entire second coming as Blues coach.

Talent is not the issue here. Especially since the eligibility tweaks, New South Wales has enough players to fill an Origin side twice over.

But for whatever reason, Daley’s charges cannot replicate in sky blue what seems to come so naturally in Penrith black or Rooster Tricolour.

It was the same problem that sank Brad Fittler in the end and solving it was the key behind Michael Maguire’s triumph in 2024.

This is not like the dynasty years, where Queensland had the Blues hopelessly outgunned. Both sides have great players but Queensland’s have more ways of finding that greatness. New South Wales have the horses, they just don’t seem to run them.

For some of the Blues, it’s borderline inexplicable. The greatest example is Nathan Cleary, the dominant NRL player of this decade. Eight years after his New South Wales debut, his Origin career is defined by its difficulties.

He has scaled high peaks, winning three man of the match awards, and gone down low valleys, not having won a series since 2021, with a whiplash quality to his rises and falls that show none of the consistent brilliance which makes him seem like the protagonist of reality at Penrith.

But he is not alone in that disconnect. Despite boasting some of the best attacking players in all of rugby league, New South Wales has three line breaks across two matches this series when Queensland has 13 players on the field, two of which came as close-range tries. Queensland has three in the first half of Game II alone.

There are other players where it’s easier to understand why they struggle to find their best because they’re used in ways that are difficult to wrap the head around.

It was again in starkest relief at the MCG, when the bench usage was funky well before Kotoni Staggs’s sin-bin forced the Blues into a corner.

Reece Robson, who can play a full game at a push (he’s done it six times at club level this year and did so again in Melbourne) but works better when he gets a spell, had too many minutes while Addin Fonua-Blake (nine) and Mitch Barnett (24) had too few.

There’s also an inability to adapt which has stifled some of the side’s best and most important players.

Isaah Yeo, regularly magnificent at lock forward for the Panthers and a walk-up start as New South Wales captain, is averaging 88 metres per game this series, less than two-thirds of his regular output at club level.

Starting Murray and either bench Yeo or moving him to prop has been a popular request among the Blues faithful and the numbers make it sound like it’d be worth a try.

Yeo’s three best Origin performances, in the 2023 dead rubber and the latter two matches of the following series, all came off the bench.

His 182 metres gained in the 2024 decider, where he was outstanding in his 60 minutes after starting on the pine, is his best mark in Blue.

Some players, like Hudson Young — one of the Blues best through two matches this year — have managed to break through and become at Origin what they are for their clubs.

For Young it took some time but Origin debuts this year of Ethan Strange and Mark Nawaqanitawase show it can be done from the jump. As low as the state might seem right now, not every New South Welshman is in search of their better selves.

But as the absence of Brian To’o shows, everything gets tenuous when the Blues get desperate and being great will not always save you.

To’o’s exclusion looms over this game like a spectre. The reigning Brad Fittler Medallist is, by any measure you like, one of the best wingers in New South Wales Origin history.

He was below his best in Origin I and got out-jumped for a try in a high-profile moment in Melbourne. But if anyone in the current side had earned the right to a quiet night it was To’o.

If he is deemed surplus to requirements, then the tap on the shoulder can come for anybody. A loss on Wednesday would mean nobody is assured a place in whatever comes next.

Not James Tedesco, the best Blue of his era, who has already been moved on once before. Not Yeo, who will be 32 and edging towards his 300th NRL game by the time the 2027 series starts.

Not Cleary or halves partner Mitchell Moses — defeat would give the former his fourth straight loss in deciders and mean he has not played in a winning series in five years, while the latter’s Origin reputation, so bullet-proof following 2024 will look a lot more vulnerable after three seasons where he’s struggled for consistent fitness at club level.

Knives will be out and beaks will be bloodied, for Daley himself most of all. Win or lose, it is widely expected to be his final game as coach which will mean it’s the last time he’s directly involved in an Origin match, ending a streak that began in 1989 and stretched through his glittering playing career. 

Defeat could mean the end of that legacy is the most painful part of all, especially if New South Wales does what it always does during times of despair and devours its own in a frenzy of self-hatred. 

The Blues can, of course, stop all this from happening. All it would take is a win to flip the script, silence the doubters and restore what now seems lost. 

They have the ability, even if it’s been hard to see through this series. What Cleary, Yeo, Moses and all the rest have endures through times of crisis. 

Daley’s Origin record has been savaged in recent weeks but he’s coached the most wins at Lang Park of any Blues coach this century with three and is just one behind Phil Gould’s all-time record at the venue. Until the Game I escape this year, Daley had coached as many wins in Brisbane as he had in Sydney.

Victory in the corresponding clash two years ago means the Blues have experience in silencing the Maroon hordes at Lang Park and with nine players backing up from that night they have the living proof it can be done.

They also have the added motivation of being totally counted out and keeping heart when all men doubt you is the rocket fuel behind some of interstate football’s most legendary nights. Overcoming the long odds is what Origin is all about.

But those stats from up top? They cut both ways. For more than 20 years New South Wales has found it incredibly hard to regroup mid-series — they have not won a decider after losing Game II since 2004 and never won a Lang Park decider off a loss.

Daley’s sides have one win from nine starts in matches where the State of Origin shield is on the line and have not won a live match that isn’t a series opener since 2015. 

Queensland’s 36 points in 40 minutes in Melbourne is the kind of whirlwind that can break a team beyond repair.

To overcome all that, they’ll have to play to their limits and beyond them. They know Queensland will; they always do when it counts because Maroons coach Billy Slater has proven to have a special gift in that department and for Origin careers to survive and legacies to be saved, the Blues must take on the methods of their enemies. 

It sounds simple, but if it was, it would happen every time. They wouldn’t need saving to begin with. New South Wales are sure their best is yet to come, but if it can come it must be now.