After 50 minutes of Game II of State of Origin XXXVI this journalist – and I would suggest several other chroniclers of recent history – was cranking up the keyboard with variations of “It’s over – Queensland dynasty busted by marauding blue hordes”. Thirty minutes later I wondered how I could be so naïve, so foolish. How could I forget the old but true edict, “Never write off a champion”.
Because Queensland has four champions – Cameron Smith, Johnathan Thurston, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk. Though they were bashed up, run over and down by 10 points at half-time, they came out in the second stanza, with the Origin series on the line and did what they always do – play cool, smart, brilliant and perfectly-executed rugby league. And they showed that even with a combined age of 136, that there is plenty of life in these old dogs yet.
Again, how could one ever doubt that with that quartet on the field that Queensland’s dynasty would live while they did? The “proof” was there on the field. The Blues’ first 50 minutes was effectively an extension of the 80 minutes from Game I: their giant forwards rumbled up the middle and hit hard, James Tedesco ran off that, and the Blues halves James Maloney and Mitchell Pearce fed big, fast men quick, slick ball.
All three NSW tries, scored by backs, were made by big marauders in the middle. And you felt it just wouldn’t get any better for Queensland. When Aaron Woods went off, David Klemmer came one. Josh Jackson was strong, Jake Trbojevic was stronger. Wade Graham made some nice plays.
Andrew Fifita took some stopping but was subdued with gang tackles. Yet you felt it didn’t matter – that the Blues were running roughshod through the Maroons. And that the great Queensland dynasty was run and done. The kings are dead. Long live the kings.
But the kings weren’t dead, because the heirs apparent didn’t kill them. Rather the Blues shut up shop. They dropped the ball, gave away penalties. They didn’t do too much in attack and when they did they threw dud balls into touch.
The bottom line is this: they didn’t try to win; they tried not to lose. It was not the performance of an heir to the throne. It was staid, uncreative, limp. And it’ll hurt them to hear it – but NSW choked. They went into their shell. In 30 minutes they went from dynasty busters to bumbling Blues, eyes wide in the headlights. Chokers. What else could you call it?
Post-match Andrew Johns described the Blues’ second half as “the dumbest half of football NSW have ever played”. His point was that Thurston’s shoulder was almost hanging off. A pretty simple paradigm of rugby league is that if there’s blood in the water, send in the sharks.
Yet no-one among their number had the nous to throw big bodies at the great man. Not the halves, Maloney and Pearce. Not the captain, Boyd Cordner, lauded as a “doer” rather than a talker – the Blues needed both. They appeared to have neither. They needed follow someone to run into Thurston’s shoulder, again and again.
And yet there was nothing from the Blues’ coaches box. A message wasn’t sent out. Wally Lewis could’ve been talking directly to Cordner, Pearce and Maloney when he said post-match: “The great players take control in the difficult times. They demand the ball. They put the play on that inspires everyone around them.
“NSW did that for the first 40 minutes. It should’ve been what they continued to do. Instead they clocked off. They offered Queensland a chance to get back into the game and that was not wasted.”
And so to Brisbane and a wet dream for Channel Nine’s ad sales staff: a decider in Game III, in Brisbane and in Cooper Cronk’s last game for Queensland. It will likely be the most-watched television program of 2017. And it will be unlikely that Queensland are written off as long as there’s breath in Smith, Thurston, Slater and Cronk. The dynasty lives. Never write off the champions.
