State of Origin 2015 Game 1: It’s amazing the NSW Blues only lost by one point

WANTED: a new Blues State of Origin half-back. Immediate start. Long term opportunity.

WANTED: a new Blues State of Origin half-back. Immediate start. Long term opportunity.

Must have experience at shutting down games. Must find touch with penalties.

Trent Hodkinson is usually an expert in this area.

In six years of first grade football, he was won nine games with field goals for Manly and Canterbury.

But under the intense pressure of Origin football he couldn’t deliver on the biggest stage on Wednesday night.

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Not when it was 10-all and the Blues desperately needed a field goal in the final 10 minutes.

It wasn’t that he missed one it was more that he didn’t put the team in a position to get one.

On the fourth tackle we went to the right side centre instead of carrying it towards the posts.

On the last tackle instead of taking a wide-range shot we threw it to the left wing.

The difference was the Maroons’ chief playmaker Cooper Cronk, as has happened so often in the past.

NSW had two field goal opportunities in the final 10 minutes but blew it.Cronk had one and took it.

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Renowned for his loyalty, Daley will want to stick by his halves but it’s massive gamble.

QLD didn’t win last night’s game. NSW lost it. The fact we weren’t beaten by 20 was a miracle.

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Only the Blues’ never-say-die attitude and incredible courage in defence kept us in the game.

We made enough mistakes and unforced errors to lose three games but somehow stayed in it for 80 minutes. It showed this series is not over yet.

Not if we can lower the error rate. While it is unfair to single out Hodkinson, QLD’s game management skills were far superior to ours.

Our forwards did enough to win the football game.

Aaron Woods was immense but didn’t get enough support. .Picture Gregg Porteous

Aaron Woods and James Tamou were outstanding. Woods made 82 metres in 25 minutes with a phenomenal work rate. He took two of the first three hit ups of the game.

Tamou not only made hard metres but came up with a beautiful offload to put Josh Dugan away to set up our first try for Josh Morris.

QLD controlled the opening 15 minutes because the Blues started with too many errors.

Roosters winger Daniel Tupou knocked on in the first tackle in just the sixth minute and the Blues were almost punished for it. Billy Slater actually crossed but the video referee ruled he’d pushed Hodkinson out of the way.

Billy Slater tries to prevent Beau Scott from scoring and fails in Origin 1. Picture Gregg Porteous

Tamou knocked on in the ninth minute and this time NSW paid the penalty when Cronk scored from the next set.

That the Blues could recover and take a 10-6 lead into half-time was a phenomenal effort.

NSW began the second-half just as badly. Mitchell Pearce knocked on a poor pass from Robbie Farah out of dummy half.

We got a penalty on our own line when Billy Slater flopped on Morris. But then Hodkinson inexplicably failed to find touch.

The Maroons should have scored from the next set but Inglis passed to the touch judge instead of his winger Darius Boyd. Shortly afterwards Andrew Fifita got penalised for interference in the play the ball. Inglis knocked on this time to relieve the pressure.

In the 51st minute Dugan lost the ball. Then we gave away another penalty.

Cooper Cronk kicks Queensland to victory. Pic Mark Evans

Eventually the pressure told and Will Chambers scooted over in the corner to level the scores.

Then Cronk kicked the macth-winner and that was the difference. They had a better half-back than we did.