Two people will wear the blame for Blues’ defeat. Both will get another chance

The line between being glorified and vilified in Origin is a fine one. The interstate fixture has a habit of disregarding form, overlooking performance and boiling down to the result.

The blame for NSW’s failure to capitalise on a 1-0 series lead was always going to fall primarily on two people: the coach and the superstar halfback.

Having already lost game three deciders in 2020 and 2022, Nathan Cleary has been labelled as a player who just can’t find a way to own the Origin arena. Guilty as charged, the Panthers skipper acknowledged after Wednesday night’s game.

His opposite number, Tom Dearden, is half the player Cleary is. That’s not a crack at Dearden, but a reflection of Cleary’s standing in the game – he has, after all, won the past four NRL premierships.

Yet, the Queensland No.7, rushed into the team to replace their long-serving captain with the Maroons on the brink of successive series losses, produced two games of football that delivered Queensland the series and earned him the Wally Lewis Medal.

Cleary was the first player picked in Daley’s mind in the lead-up to the series. His position guaranteed – as it should have been – despite not featuring in Michael Maguire’s series-winning side the year before.

Nathan Cleary failed to help NSW to a series win.Credit: Getty Images

Cleary is still the best player in the game. You’d be a fool to suggest he shouldn’t be the first Blues player picked again next year. But with each passing series defeat, large potholes form on his path to Immortality.

Cleary won’t need anyone to tell him he has done little to allay concerns about his ability to dominate Origin.

The same goes for coach Laurie Daley, who was left to defend himself in the post-match press conference when asked if he deserved to continue as NSW coach next year.

He believed that because of what the Blues were “building” they could turn it around in 12 months’ time. The nature of Origin, however, often prohibits coaches the luxury of being able to build.

Laurie Daley speaks with Queensland captain Cameron Munster after the match.Credit: Getty Images

In the words of legendary NFL coach Bill Parcells, “You are what your record says you are”.

Daley will get another chance, though. There will be no boardroom split that leads to his removal, as there was first time around in 2017.

There is no benefit in blowing things up when the reality is that the shortage of potential candidates to replace Maguire contributed to Daley’s reinstatement in the first place.

That, and his relationship with NSWRL chief executive Dave Trodden, who will also come under fire for a selection process that, externally, appeared destined to result in Daley’s second coming.

That’s not to suggest Daley isn’t deserving of the role, but when the criteria ruled out coaching candidates with an NRL club affiliation and those with a significant role in the media, it was always going to be nigh on impossible to overlook Daley, who did not tick either of those boxes.

It’s hard to be critical of the coaching when Craig Bellamy, arguably the greatest coach in the history of the sport, has been sitting in the passenger seat throughout the entire campaign.

He, like Cleary, has an Origin chink in his armour, adding just one win as a consultant this year to the previous two he amassed in nine games as head coach from 2008-2010.

The bitter pill of an Origin defeat was much easier to swallow for devastated NSW fans when they looked at the opposition team sheet and saw the names Slater, Smith, Inglis, Cronk and Thurston. Not so much when it includes Shibasaki, Toia, Loiero and Capewell.

In game one, NSW, the stronger side on paper, were the better team on grass, too. However, that was perhaps a greater reflection of how bad Queensland were more than the superiority of a Blues team that gained a false sense of security with their third successive win over the Maroons spanning the past two series.

Suddenly Slater, the most sought after non-NRL head coach of the past three years, according to the Herald’s annual club bosses survey, had lost his mojo.

That’s how fickle Origin can be. Then Slater dropped Cherry-Evans and was pilloried for not applying the traditional Queensland pick-and-stick mentality. The noise got even louder.

No Queensland coach had survived two consecutive series losses. Then, on the eve of game two, the noise reached a deafening crescendo when Slater made an ill-judged comment about the late Paul Green that required him to issue an apology at an impromptu press conference on the day of the game. Many speculated that Slater was buckling under the pressure of Origin.

Even Daley’s doubters began to put things into perspective. Perhaps he wasn’t such a bad coach, after all. Perhaps it was the fact he came up against the greatest Origin team in history that contributed to his record of just one series win in five attempts in his first tenure as Blues coach.

Suddenly, the script had been flipped. NSW had the star-studded team. They couldn’t lose.

But four-time premiership-winning Panthers coach Ivan Cleary has a saying that provided an apt description of the 160 minutes of football that followed: “The star of the team is the team”.

Queensland lived out that motto as the boys in blue, many of whom are playing or have played under Cleary, took the field seemingly having abandoned the adage that had served them so well in club land.

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Michael Chammas and Andrew “Joey” Johns dissect the upcoming NRL round, plus the latest footy news, results and analysis. Sign up for the Sin Bin newsletter.