A Blues Fan's Review of State of Origin

It had all the sickening collisions and mouthwatering physicality we've come to know and love, but none of the brawling (fuck it). When NSW three-quarter, Blake Ferguson stood hand to throat with Queensland GOAT, Jonathan Thurston, you couldn't help but wonder how things might have been. For a young upstart with a chance to punch the shit out of QLD's playmaker and mastermind of this here unprecedented era of Maroon dominance, must have been tempting. Frick, if Tommy Raudonikus was still the coach it would have happened.

But Ferguson released his grip leaving Thurston to do what he was always going to do: pick our fucking eyes out like the unparalleled craftsman that he is.

He is something more than a man. Thurston is GOD, a crafty trick-shot merchant who's carried the burden of an undersized physique through most of his career. Rugby League is not easy on the little men. Where AFL is all middle-distance runners jostling and shouldering in a wide-open pastures, rugby league is like dodging road trains if you're a little man. You simply cannot play this game at the elite level unless your body has the capacity to move at speed with at least 85 kegs on your frame (The average weight of the NSW lineup this year was 100 kilos).

They said Thurston was too small when he made his debut for Canterbury as a wiry, dreadlocked Koori kid from Brisbane. They let him go not long after in what is one of the worst trades in the history of the game, preferring the meat and potato half, Brett 'Shifty' Sherwin, who'd repay the Dogs with years of bland mediocrity. Thurston, meanwhile, headed north to the spiritual home of indigenous rugby league, the North Queensland Cowboys, where he teamed up with the little wizard (and fellow First Australian) Matty Bowen. What great years they were, featuring some of the most intuitive, trick-shot footy the game has ever seen.

But it was in the gym that Thurston worked hardest, inching his way season by season toward the almost unrecognisable figure he stands at today. Pure muscle - slabs of pec, raised lats, slabs of quad - on top of his already preternatural speed, timing and creativity. Not to mention that traditional front-on, under-the-rib-cage style of defence. Old school, the best. And what a competitor. Just ask Ferguson. He got the full treatment shortly after their opening tussle, Thurston brilliantly disguising a smack-to-the-head, head-slam, forearm-to-the face combo that told Ferguson who was bitch. NSW would have to win this in the forwards. There's no overcoming a Thurston led backline with G.I, Cronk and Boyd (fuck Boyd!) in it.

Leading the NSW engine room would be the Bruise Brothers, Paul 'Peptides' Gallen and Greg 'I didn't glass her' Bird, two of Australia's most celebrated threats to public safety. If you like physicality in its purest, most mal-intended form, you love watching the Bruise Brothers. Who could forget the time Paul Gallen found his way beneath Anthony Laffranchi's head-tape and ripped open a freshly stitched wound to buy his team some time with a blood-bin stoppage. Or Greg Bird's knee to Lee Hookey's face. It was a typical performance from the Bruisers. Gallen's leaping swinging arm into the shoulders (and maybe jaw) of Queensland slab, Matt Scott was an honest origin hit. Not a fucken penalty. That was gonna cost us.

Thurston pocketed the two-point penalty conversion forcing NSW to weather an early molehill of pressure. But that's all you need in Origin. Even the smallest momentum swing, the most marginal ascendancy, sticks out like dogs balls at this level. A penalty, or, in Brett Morris's case, a PTSD-inducing quick-tap fumble creates an extra set of defence, works heart-rates up, runs legs down, and creates a visible shift in the game. NSW were showing signs of succumbing. But then a penalty to Gulgong defensive "weapon" Josh Jackson, some field position, and what?! Get fucked! We're in, you're kidding! The Eastern Suburbs connection, my boys, Maloney and Cordner, running lines on the left side. It was all it took. A moment of fresh air, a moment of forward thrust, QLD on the blackfoot, and who else but you're best mate on your shoulder screaming for it as the white-line and white-noise rushes at you. You gotta wonder what that feels like. Hooooooweeee!

Time to bring in the boppers. Andrew Fifita, 114 kilos of Polynesian punishment (his father is Tongan) and First Australian footwork (his mother is indigenous) baring down on you is a horrific sight. Follow it up with the 120 kilo skinhead-in-TNs, David Klemmer, and you've got a defensive line on the back foot. Or worse, as QLD's Michael Morgan found out. The Nth QLD Cowboy absorbed the full inertia of a Klemmer hit up, the 22 year old taking it up like there was a train-ticket-inspector standing in front of him at Bankstown Station. Been to India? Get that intaya, Morgan. His night was over.

But they weathered it. They always do the Maroons. You gotta put it down to experience. Their stars might be entering career twilight (thank fuck) but winning tight games is a sixth sense that NSW just doesn't have (we've won one of the last ten origin series). They'll absorb all the pressure and field position you can throw at 'em, then get Thurston in position so he can pick your eyes out. It sucks, but you gotta be used to it by now. He struck in the 37th minute with a sharp run down the right and a second-man play in a phone box worth of room to put Gagai in the corner with plenty of millimetres to spare. Six-four to the Cane Toads at half-time.

Now it was time for the NSW coaching administration to flex its inadequacy. You won't get many bad words out of me about Laurie Daley. He's a don, an underground First Australian groover whose playing record for the mighty Green Machine and NSW in the nineties needs no introduction. But dropping origin debutante and oxycodone quaffer, Dylan Walker in the bubbling cauldron that is the final ten minutes of a knife-edged origin opener was a shit idea. A waste of explosive talent for sure and far too much pressure for any mortal to think his way out of. His main contribution to the game was testament to that: a late attempt at a penalty-milk that might have worked at club level, but this is origin. And you're a rookie. Don't get smart, c**t, just tuck it under the arm and run fucken STRAIGHT! Not enough minutes for Fifita and Klemmer might have hurt us, too. In any case the scores remained the same, with yet another gritty win to the Toads. We now head to the Suncorp (Qld) cauldron where a NSW melt seems foregone. It was hard, it was fast and it was brutal. Classic origin. Or as Queensland Captain/Prop, Sam Thaiday liked to put it - live on air during the post-match interview: "a bit like losing your virginity — it wasn't nice but we got the job done." Here, here.

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