The submission at Suncorp was shocking. Total. Complete. Queensland’s Origin team used to be what the All Blacks were to Test rugby. What Rafael Nadal was to Roland Garros. What Roger Federer was to The All England Club.
There was something magical in a maroon jersey, something in the way the mad buggers wore it, something in the way it represented everything good and great about team sport. You’d spill blood for the bloke next to you. You were bullet-proof in it.
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For those eight unbeaten years when Cam Smith, Johnathan Thurston, Greg Inglis, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk ran riot, the Maroons’ Origin aura was as powerful and folkloric as anything you’d ever seen in world sport.
They were Manchester United, the New England Patriots, the New York Yankees, the Chicago Bulls. They were the West Indian cricketers in their pomp. Untouchable.
But something in that jersey died on Sunday night. It can be resurrected, and probably will be some day. But for now it’s done, dusted and decomposing. When the Maroons lost in the old days, they never really lost. You might beat them but you’d never break them. They were rock-solid and resolute.
They picked and sticked with selections. They never criticised each other. They’d never admit defeat. Now the white flag is up. Paul Vautin used to symbolise the never-say-die-attitude but it was Vautin himself, unaware his microphone was on, who read the last rites on Sunday night, saying the third game against NSW might as well be called off.
Queensland as quitters? Unheard of. But it was heard loud and clear.
Captain Daly Cherry-Evans wept – nothing wrong with the emotion – and kept saying, “They were too good, they’re just too good.”
Music to the Blues’ ears. The sound of Queensland broken as well as beaten. Cherry-Evans’ post-match discussion with ex-skipper Darren Lockyer was impossibly awkward. Channel Nine needs to find Lockyer a different role. He’s a terrible interviewer.
To Wimbledon. I suspect we’re about to witness the death of a different dynasty. The career of Federer. I’d be on high alert for a retirement announcement if he bombs out in the first week at The All England Club.
The 39-year-old plays France’s world No.42 Adrian Mannarino on Tuesday. There’s a lot riding on his results: his career from here. These could be the last days of an all-time great for all we know.
He isn’t the sort of bloke to keep slogging away on the tour if he’s not winning. When he quits, it will be effective fairly immediately.
Federer has a great draw, which is just as well. It’s now or never for a 21st major title. His two biggest obstacles to the final, according to the seedings, are Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev, both of whom are duds on grass.
If Federer loses to either of them, or even earlier against someone else, I can’t see him staying on tour much longer. Biosecurity bubbles aren’t his go. Doesn’t COVID-19 know who he is?
Wimbledon may never have seen a bigger non-British sentimental favourite. A ninth title for the road for the old boy would have everyone throwing their hats in the air. But he’s sounding like someone who can see the end of the road.
He’s auctioning off all his old gear: his racquets and outfits from his 2007 and 2009 Wimbledon finals, and hundreds of other bits and pieces, are fetching millions of dollars for his Roger Federer Foundation.
He’s unsure if he will play the Olympics, admitting his appearance at the Tokyo Games, and then the American hardcourt season and US Open, depends entirely on his Wimbledon run.
“Obviously, if I play really good here or really bad, I think it has an impact on how everything might look for the summer,” he said in London.
“Still, my feeling is I would like to go to the Olympics. I would like to play as many tournaments as possible. But I think we decided now let’s just get through Wimbledon, sit down as a team, and then decide where we go from there.”
Federer’s loss to young Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime in the second round at Halle was a bit of a shocker. He looked like he was fighting a losing battle, not so much against Auger-Aliassime as himself, his slightly frayed confidence, his gradually slowing body and the chip-and-charge of Father Time. He can still win Wimbledon if he runs hot, no doubt about it, but he admits self-doubts plagued him at Halle.
“I had a mental moment where I was just not happy with how things were going in the match. The good thing now looking back is I know it will not happen here because I’m ready, I’m excited, I’m pumped up. I know I can do so much better. It reminded me more of the junior times, in the beginning of my career, where all of a sudden you just don’t see the positivity any more. I was maybe having higher expectations. Maybe it’s also part of the comeback. I think I’ve got to take the positives out of these last few weeks that I’m actually here at Wimbledon right now and I have a chance. I know if I get rolling, if I get into the second week, which is the goal here right now, that I get stronger and stronger as every match goes by, I believe it’s very much possible to win. I come here feeling mentally strong … but the goal was not to play until 40. This all mainly came the last years. I never thought, also with the last surgeries I’ve had, that I would still be going.”
It’s more difficult, or downright impossible, for Federer to travel with his family while COVID-19 casts its pall. He’s in London without Mirka and the kids. He turns 40 on August 8, the last day of the Olympics. My hunch? His retirement will be swift and it all hangs on Wimbledon. The world is a different place for him and all of us now. It’s harder to be a citizen of the world. He won’t have a bar of quarantine ahead of the next Australian Open. I doubt he’ll play another match at Melbourne Park. This year is likely to be it for him. If he crashes and burns at Wimbledon, he may call it a day on the spot. If he wins Wimbledon, he may do the same. My biggest hunch? The Laver Cup runs from September 24 to 26 in Boston. It’s his baby. A prime business venture. I suspect that’s where he will take his final bow.
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