Mal Meninga and the Queensland Origin team ready to build on their legacy

TODAY is D-Day for the final make-up of the Queensland team for Wednesday night's Origin opener in Sydney.

TODAY is D-Day for the final make-up of the Queensland team for Wednesday night's Origin opener in Sydney.

We have an opposed training session this morning against the Sunshine Coast Sea Eagles. If a player can't get through that session, then he won't be playing at ANZ Stadium.

The team that trains this morning will be the team that plays.

As we turn into the final stretch of preparations for Game One, now is the time for us to switch on and step our training up a notch.

To do that, we have to remove as many question marks as we can about the final make-up of the team.

Darius Boyd is probably the focus. He has been working very hard to get himself right after injuring his ankle last weekend playing for Newcastle, but the time has come to make a decision.

Obviously, a few of the question marks over the make-up of the team are beyond our control. But we are operating under the assumption that the team will stay as selected.

Ordinarily, being days away from an Origin game and still not knowing whether your halfback will play would be a major cause for concern.

But I have been very pleased with the relaxed and matter-of-fact approach from everyone to the situation.

Whether Johnathan Thurston plays is completely in the hands of Mother Nature, with the impending birth of his first child.

The overwhelming response is "we can't change the situation, so let's get on with it''.

If JT has to withdraw from the team on the morning of the match, then we will play the cards that we are dealt. JT will be out, Daly Cherry-Evans will come in. Simple as that.

Sure, we would miss JT. But the performance and cohesion of the team will not be reduced by the absence of one player.

This is a team, not a one-man band.

We can only control what is controllable.

We will make a decision on Darius this morning, and work forward from there.

We have a good squad here - 20 players that have each been preparing as if they are going to play.

If needed, we have very good replacements.

This camp has been about reinforcing the importance of building on the legacy that this team will leave behind.

In the first couple of days in camp, we paid tribute to the 1959 Queensland team - the last Maroons team to win a series against NSW in the pre-Origin era.

Being able to talk to and pay tribute to the guys from that team will help give us a bit of perspective and balance in our own endeavours.

This current era of players has enjoyed an incredible run of success, but as Queenslanders, we still have a lot of catching up to do to try to address the imbalance in the history books.

As painful as NSW fans may believe the past seven years have been, Queensland fans endured two decades without a series win.

It is that 20 years in the league wilderness that makes you appreciate what a momentous achievement it was for the 1959 team to beat NSW.

That long drought was also the reason why that first Origin win in 1980, when the great Arthur Beetson came home to lead Queensland to victory, meant so much.

It is why Origin and the state's league team still mean so much to the people of Queensland.

And why for us, as the current custodians of the famous Maroon jersey, the job is never done.