Losing a State of Origin series can teach you lessons which, ideally, you’d never have to learn in the first place and Game II proved to be graduation day for New South Wales.
The Blues might have dropped both Game II and III last year but the cause was truly lost in the former, as their nerve failed them on a monsoonal night in Newcastle and Queensland snuck home for an 11-10 victory. From there belief, and eventually the series, was gone.
A similar fate could have befallen New South Wales on Thursday night. Again, they were coming off an impressive victory behind enemy lines in the series opener which featured plenty of open, flowing footy and, again, they were warm favourites to wrap up the series on home soil.
And again, it rained until the Sydney Football Stadium was wet as an otter’s pocket but this time the hard-won wisdom of the past helped the Blues rise from the muddy depths with a 26-6 win that earned them their first Origin series win in a multi-game format as they nailed their demons into a waterlogged coffin.
The New South Wales path to victory was brutal. They leant on the superior athleticism of their forward pack and punched around the middle with power and mobility. In defence they hit everything in Maroon that moved and if something stopped moving, they’d hit it until it did.
They did all this over and over again, until Queensland were stuck in the mud, until the scoreboard seriously mounted, until they proved beyond all doubt that the lessons from last year had fully sunk in and it might have been simple but, as last year proves, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Olivia Kernick’s short ball and Simaima Taufa’s line for their opening try showed there is sophistication in even this most direct of approaches.
Kernick’s solo effort later in the half, combined with her 236 running metres and ten tackle busts, made the Roosters backrower an easy choice for player of the match even before she powered over for a second try to wrap things up late on.
The direct approach meant it was a banner night for forwards, but others were called upon in ways that belie their usual skill-sets for thankless yet vital tasks.
Jess Sergis and Tiana Penitani Gray applied enough kick pressure that Queensland could barely clear the ball while injuries meant Emma Verran spent time at both hooker and wing. As a team, their focus was remarkable — they did not drop a ball in the second half.
On a difficult night for any halfback, Jesse Southwell played with great maturity with her kicking game coming to the fore and had some classy attacking moments once things opened up late.
But in fitting with the bloody-minded approach, her best play of the night came early in the first half, when the game was still alive, when she collected a loose ball in her own in-goal and managed to fight through a horde of Queenslanders and get back into the field of play.
It was a second effort of will rather than a moment of skill, and it showed the conviction on which the Blues built their most dominant Origin victory since their last one.
By the time the dust settled and the celebrations began, it was easy to forget that Queensland had opened the scoring.
Tamika Upton’s try should not have been awarded — her teammates were lined up for the expected drop out when the Bunker inexplicably ruled that Kernick did not ground the loose ball — but it was as good as things got for the Maroons all night.
They have Ferraris in this team, but a sports car can’t run easy on a dirt road. Kernick ran for more metres than Queensland’s starting middles Mackenzie Weale, Jessika Elliston and Keilee Joseph combined and broke as many tackles as the entire Maroons team put together.
They will still have much to play for Game III in two weeks’ time. Women’s rugby league is established enough that it’s running out of firsts, but being the first team to be on the end of a whitewash is motivation enough.
A dead rubber is uncharted waters for the women’s game but the difference between 2-1 and 3-0 can be the difference between an Origin career surviving or a player’s card being marked. Some of them will be playing for their Origin lives.
Queensland have been beaten to the punch and steadily punched to the beat for two matches now and at some point they must snap back towards the kind of football that served them so well last series.
But it will be a tall order if the Blues are as ravenous and ruthless, because there are very few problems their muscle cannot solve.
It’s a lesson New South Wales learned the hard way but, as they prepare to be welcomed back Newcastle as conquerors, now it feels like one they’ll never forget.
Discussion about this post