State of Origin III delivers one of rugby league’s all-time great games as New South Wales edge iconic tussle

They ran ads for Gladiator 2 at half time of the State of Origin decider on Channel 9. It didn’t deserve the comparison: how could blokes with fake swords and fake sand compete with this?

It was tough as old sandals footy, tryless for over an hour. When it came, Bradman Best screamed, grimacing, blood flowing from his mouth. Are you not entertained?

New South Wales take the series 2-1, turning around a Game 1 defeat on their own turf and winning on enemy turf for the first time since 2005 in one of the hardest games of rugby league anyone can remember.

14-4 was the final score, but that’s window-dressing. This wasn’t a game that could be explained by numbers.

The Maroons failed to cross the stripe at all, so spent from defending that they couldn’t punch back. The Blues almost blew themselves out trying to score, were lucky to avoid a sucker punch and eventually slipped one through.

Billy Slater had left himself wide open for criticism after his decision to leave David Fifita on the Gold Coast while recalling veterans Felise Kaufusi and Kurt Capewell in the back row as well as Dane Gagai in the centres.

The logic would have been security, and security he got, the sort you only get from blokes that have been there and done that. Between the three, they added over 50 Origin appearances.

At the other end of the spectrum, however, was Jeremiah Nanai. Binned in the first half, his was the defensive error that allowed Jarome Luai through to put Best over the line. It was hard not to imagine who wasn’t there.

Michael Maguire only made enforced changes – why would change a side that had been so dominate last time out? – but brought Best in for the injured Latrell Mitchell.

He broke the line in the opening minute and continued to bend it thereafter, the only man to average over 10m per carry in a game dominated by line speed and defence.

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Mitchell Moses, who scored the clincher in the 68th minute, had done next to nothing offensively prior to that but had pinned the Maroons back time and again with distance kicking.

If you play enough rugby league at the right end of the field, you’ll usually win no matter how deep the wells of resolve within your opponents.

For a long time, that didn’t look like happening.

Queensland have made a mythology of halves like the first here.

The Blues had 60% of the ball, the vast majority of it in the Maroons end, but could not breach the wall. 22 red zone tackles to three.

Things that could go wrong did.

Jeremiah Nanai was binned for running into a melee with Cameron Murray – only Murray had run from the bench, so Mitch Barnett had to sit down in his stead. Haumole Olakau’atu, the Blues 19th man, was sent off in his suit.

They pulled off a miracle to deny Stephen Crichton at the corner, but were pinged for a penalty anyway. They forced a mistake, but Daly Cherry-Evans spilled the ball back.

Slater, somewhat laughably, likes to talk tactics by couching his players in platitudes – “he’s a good Queenslander” – but how could he not when they play like this?

What better way could he describe this kind of backs-against-the-wall, refuse-to-be-beat defence than Queenslandesque?

Of course they ended the half 2-0 up. How could they not? Moreover, as the blue tide kept coming after the break, they were forced to equalise via a touchline penalty goal.

Who takes a penalty goal two minutes in the second half with a side on the rack? One that doesn’t think it can score. This was ur-Origin, so it had to be Queensland leading against the odds.

The Blues had all the running, the Maroons did all the defending, everyone ran into everyone else harder than they ever do on any other occasion and Queensland somehow ended up in front.

Origin is one thing, but it is still a subset of rugby league.

Madge’s Blues had struggled in attack in Game 1, but were forgiven for it as they were playing a man light after Joseph Suaalii’s sending off.

They’d been a lot better in Game 2, though again caveated by a slew of early, questionable calls that made it almost impossible not to take a lead, aided by a Queensland that were out of sorts.

This time around, it looked like the waves were going crash against a wall and not break it. The Maroons defended for their lives, but weren’t asked to do enough. The bodies were willing and the minds weren’t weak.

When the breach came in the 65th minute, it was in the same spot as the original line break in the first, with early ball on the left that faced three against three and asked Queensland to pick.

For all the line speed, all the melees, all the intensity, that was it. Luai, going at the line and asking Nanai to pick. He chose wrong. Best scored.

Moses, picking Harry Grant out in the line, a player with more game involvements than anyone else on the field, and finding him tired.

The halfback, who later departed with his elbow hanging off, had settled what his centre, way down the list of priorities at the start of the series, had started,

It was Origin football at its best, a reminder of why this format of rugby league maintains such an allure. When it’s like this, it’s better than pretty much anything in sport.

Gladiatorial? That’s not the half of it.

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