State of Origin 2023: Queensland Maroons’ plan to inflict first clean sweep in 13 years
Despite claiming back-to-back series victories for the first time since 2017, Queensland plans on landing a 13-year killer blow on the Blues in Sydney.
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Cameron Munster wants to transform Queensland’s Origin series dominance into a “terrible time for NSW” as the Maroons turn their attention to snapping a 13-year clean sweep drought.
The Maroons secured back-to-back State of Origin series wins with an emphatic 32-6 domination of the Blues at Suncorp Stadium on Wednesday night.
The 26-point drubbing ensured Queensland coach Billy Slater has won the two series he has been in charge of and gives the Maroons a rare shot at a 3-nil white wash.
Not since 2010 – in the middle of Queensland’s decade of dominance under Mal Meninga – have the Maroons successfully completed a series clean sweep.
That was the only 3-nil result for Queensland in the nine series wins from 10 years that Meninga coached, highlighting how rare an occurrence it is.
But the Maroons will head to Accor Stadium in Sydney on July 12 with the opportunity to rub salt into NSW’s blue wounds following the Suncorp shutout and game one miracle in Adelaide.
Despite the Maroons being a relatively young team, Munster said there would be no complacency and they wanted to bury the Blues in front of their home crowd.
“The boys are going to go hard – we want a 3-nil whitewash,” Munster said.
“We will go down there to Sydney and make sure we do everything we can to make it a whitewash. It hasn’t been done since 2010 and we want to write our own history.
“We can rewrite history and make it a terrible time for NSW. It is not going to be easy.
“It would be a massive achievement for everyone here to do something that hasn’t been done in 13 years. We are ready to rock and roll.”
Interestingly, Queensland’s all-star current coaching crew featured in the 2010 series domination, the last of the Maroons’ four clean sweeps.
Head coach Slater featured in every game along with assistants Johnathan Thurston and Nate Myles.
Hooker Matt Ballin made his Origin debut in game one, replacing Cameron Smith who missed the first game due to injury but played in the next two.
The 2010 team also had to win two games in Sydney, whereas this year’s team will only venture to Homebush once for the finale against a deflated Blues.
Slater said he was targeting a 3-nil result and the Maroons had improvement in them.
“Of course we’re going to look to improve and perform well, that’s what’s in front of us,” he said.
“There is better than that (game two), too.
“They’re only getting started, this team. They’ve created a foundation to their footy and they’re just getting started and building.”
With a 1-nil lead to fall back on, there was talk the Maroons may not be as motivated as NSW in game two.
But that was simply not the case as Queensland defended with desperation and blitzed the Blues when opportunities arose.
“We aren’t satisfied yet,” Maroons forward Reuben Cotter said.
“We’ll celebrate this win but the boys in this team are hungry for more and we would love to do a clean sweep and win 3-nil.
“No-one is getting carried away. We have a lot of hard work still to do.”
CRASH: ORIGIN PAIN IS JUST STARTING FOR NSW
- Robert Craddock
Billy Slater’s State of Origin side lived out their new Zulu mantra with a magnificent series win which promises years of torment ahead for shattered NSW.
The fallout in Sydney will be as ugly as the celebrations in Caxton Street were joyful after Queensland wrapped up the series 2-0 with a 32-6 win which contained some lucky early tries but was franked by a truckload of famed Queensland grit.
The series loss, the Blues third in the last four years and their 14th demise in the last 18 years, is likely to cost NSW coach Brad Fittler his job and that’s just the start of it.
It will also ensure the third game in Sydney – a dead rubber – will become something of a financial disaster not that a solitary Maroon fan could care about that.
It crowns a stunning two year period for Slater who has won both series and amazingly managed to blood a fresh generation of stars who have already bonded like brothers.
In a bid to define the intangible Queensland spirit that has enriched the team for decades, coach Slater urged them to embrace the Zulu word “Ubuntu’ which translates to “I am, because we are.”
In other words, the team comes first.
Queensland embraced their “Ubuntu’’ by displaying incredible heart in the first half to repel wave after wave of Blues attackers but the single most memorable play which defined it came from Maroon captain Daly Cherry-Evans.
The veteran pulled off the ultimate team play midway through the first half after NSW centre Stephen Crichton swept on a loose ball and scooted downfield like a bandit on the run.
Cherry-Evans was on the other side of the ground at the time when Crichton broke free but picked the perfect angle to sweep across and cut down the runaway centre 20m out.
The same crowd that once jeered Cherry-Evans when he played for the Maroons after pulling out on a deal with the Titans gave him the greatest ovation of his career.
Queensland’s young guns were exceptional. Fullback Reece Walsh played like his coach Slater once did. Xavier Coates ran bravely and repeatedly into the teeth of the defence with early carries that were crucial.
Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow was cunning in attack and crunching in defence. They fitted in beautifully with the more experienced forward Lindsay Collins who seemed to be in everything that mattered in the second half.
Most of the Queensland team have not even reached the halfway point of their careers.
At times the Maroons were breathless, bent backwards, beaten up in big tackles. But they somehow absorbed it all.
Slater is just as fearless as a selector as he was as a player. A horse lover and occasional punter, he has an unspoken philosophy to back youth whenever there is a 50-50 call.
He could have plumped for flint-hard veteran Dane Gagai in the centres. Instead he went for the younger Tabuai-Fidow. He boldly chose Walsh at fullback ahead of Kalyn Ponga and prop Mo Fotuaika ahead of the seasoned Christian Welsh.
The Maroons fielded seven players between the age of 20 and 23 so Slater has subtly ushered in a new generation without any sense that a group of old-timers were being frogmarched out the door.
Good coaches are hard to find. Great ones come along rarely. Slater turned 40 on Sunday and Queensland should be looking to have him grow with his young team for much of the next decade.
The Maroons series victory gives means that NSW, who have almost twice as many registered players as Queensland, have won just one of the last four and four of that last 18 series.
Queensland simply has no right to do as well as they do.
NSW players bristle when it suggested these contests mean more to Queensland but the lopsided stats sure point that way.
This a Queensland team hardened by the fierce forces that swirl within the game.
Reuben Cotter has had two major knee reconstructions which almost cost him his career. Cameron Munster and fame were on awkward terms with each other for several years.
This team is a vibrant mixture of showmen like Walsh and Munster, the raw energy of the likes of Cotter, and the thinking man’s duo Cherry-Evans and Pat Carrigan.
The scary thing for NSW is that many of them are just getting started.
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