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According to the statistics from Origin I, NSW were outperforming the Maroons in many key indicators – but all those numbers can be thrown to the curb without the factor of intent.
Yes, NSW were down to 12. But enough of that narrative, let’s delve into the genuine performance of the Blues, who did everything but show purpose with the ball – which rules over everything.
Queensland dominated in one significant attacking area – they broke through the line seven times in comparison to NSW’s’ sole bust.
While it can be argued this was due to Suaalii’s absence, let’s not skip Queensland’s best try of the fixture – Ben Hunt’s first four-pointer. It was in the fifth minute, in a game with 26 players on the field – that demonstrated the power of intent, deception, playing on a whim and direct running.
Daly Cherry-Evans.(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
On the fourth tackle of the set, Cherry-Evans straightened up the attack and passed the pill onto Jeremiah Nanai, the big man on his right hip.
How does he straighten up the attack? Well, for a half taking the ball off his edge forward from a block play, it can be easy to flow with lateral motion and drift with path of the ball.
Yet, when you are as experienced as Cherry-Evans, playing each tackle with a sense of awareness is what earns you kudos.
The 35-year-old took a few steps, maintained his line on the 15-metre channel and hit Nanai with early ball – first and foremost to exploit the one-on-one matchup between his second-rower and Jarome Luai.
When Luai struggled to take down his bigger opponent, it invited Stephen Crichton to the contest and brought Brian To’o off his wing.
Enter Clive Churchill Medallist Cherry-Evans. From a simple distribution, the veteran could’ve opted for a grubber into the NSW in-goal and forced another set.
No. The flow-on effect from a fourth-tackle play meant he knew two backs were out of position on his right-hand side. Step one, genius makes and picks up overlap. Step two, genius now exploits overlap.
Cherry-Evans then goes into dummy-half and scoops the ball from the ruck on the last tackle. Oh-oh, alarm bells ringing.
He darts to the short side, makes metres with the offside markers and runs into the hole that Luai left when he was dominated in contact.
The Blues scramble to fill the gap and the rest is history – the mastermind offloads on the inside to Hunt who was always going to be in support – one, because he’s a middle player, and two, because he wasn’t dilly-dallying around at the ruck on the final tackle.
This simple play, a basic sign of intent – was why the Maroons looked a class above, even against a trying NSW outfit.
NSW were gallant and in no way lacked effort – but they were short on purpose and a man who took his game to the contest itself. With no Nathan Cleary, the Blues missed a brain desperately. Luai is a clever five-eighth, but he is not the two-play ahead thinker that Cherry-Evans or Cleary is.
Mitchell Moses is a short-side specialist. While he is not always a model of consistency, Moses must be at his impulsive best next Wednesday.
Otherwise, statistics say the Blues were winning the dogfight – 653 to 592 post contact metres, 81% completion rate compared to Queensland’s 71%, two forced dropouts to none, 14 to six offloads.
The Maroons also made five more errors and made nearly 40 more tackles.
In the end, the head of the player holds just as much value as the heart. In Origin, all that is talked about is how the heart governs the intensity of action – which is far greater in the state arena than in clubland.
But without a little bit of curiosity and a dose of intent, heart only gets you so far. Instead of Spencer Leniu trying to explode through a line to make holes, NSW need a thinker to stand up and create gaps to go with our impact players.
Unfortunately for Nicho Hynes and NSW, having a man down stripped away all dynamic thought and experiment.
It was over before the Suaalii hit, the Maroons started dominating from the first whistle, not the seventh minute.
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