State of Origin: great Dane Gagai puts bite on Blues’ dreams

Queensland have landed the first blow in the State of Origin series, beating NSW 6-4 in a low-scoring, tense opener.

Dane Gagai dives over to score the Maroons’ only try shortly before half-time in front of a crowd of 80,251 at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium last night.

Queensland have landed the first blow in the State of Origin series, beating NSW 6-4 in a low-scoring, tense opener in front of 80,251 at ANZ Stadium last night.

Both sides scored a try apiece in a match in which all the points were scored in the opening 40 minutes.

The Blues gave it a great shot, but fell just short in a match that was dominated by defence. They now have a mountain to climb as history shows the side that wins the first match invariably goes on to win the series.

Queensland, forced to defend grimly at stages in the second half, showed their true champions’ quality, repelling everything a desperate NSW could throw at them, especially during a period when the home side had four sets of six tackles at them.

In the end, both sets of players were out on their feet.

How The Australian’s live blog covered the game

The Maroons will get the chance to make it two series in a row when the second game is played at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium on June 22.

The Blues were under enormous pressure in the opening 15 minutes. They were forced to do a lot of defensive work while any possession they had was restricted largely inside their own half. It took them 20 minutes before they got possession inside the Queensland 20m.

Still, NSW did some great work to keep Queensland out, restricting the Maroons to a penalty goal after 15 minutes.

When the tide started to turn, NSW finally took advantage to post the first try of the match on 25 minutes after good work from James Maloney, who ran to the defensive line before sending Boyd Cordner crashing over to make it 4-2. But, as they have done so often, Queensland struck back just before half-time. Cooper Cronk, Johnathan Thurston and Darius Boyd combined to send Dane Gagai over in the corner in the 37th minute after running the ball on the last tackle. It was a cruel blow for the Blues, who did not deserve to be behind at the break.

The Blues took up in the second half where they had left off, mounting raid upon raid on the Maroons’ tryline. A fumbled ­attempt by Gagai to collect a grubber in his own in-goal area almost cost the Queenslanders dearly.

Eventually, having weathered the storm, Queensland turned the tide. A reckless pass by Blake Ferguson as he was tackled in his in-goal area had shades of Phil Duke’s calamity in the 1982 Origin series but the loose ball was cleaned up.

Josh Morris came within centimetres of scoring with 15 minutes to go when he cannoned into the Queensland defence on its tryline. The referee signalled a try but the video referee ruled a hand prevented him from scoring.