Queensland are again on the cusp of another special achievement in the sport of rugby league, needing only one win from the remaining two matches in the series. Their first opportunity to achieve further sporting greatness comes in just a matter of hours when at just after 8pm the New South Wales Blues and Queensland Maroons run onto our Olympic stadium in Sydney, the Blues in front of a favourable crowd, to do battle on what is seen as the toughest stage of rugby league.

Origin is all about that old, well reasonably old adage anyway of mate against mate, state against state. The time of year where you find yourself squaring up against your fellow club men, them going hard at you and you required to show just the same level of intensity, strength, agility and passion as your temporary foe.

Queensland won the first game, but only just. The team were far from consistent throughout the match, starting incredibly poorly, but they were able to turn it around when it mattered and capitalised on enough of the opportunities they had to find the New South Wales line and dive or run over for those all important four pointers.

Were it not for the poor kicking game of Carney, including that awful decision by the Blues captain to go for the two points from so far out when the NSW team had all the running things more than likely would have been at least 2 to 4 points closer.

Then there’s the controversial try which for the first million angles didn’t look a try, but the more it was replayed and explained it seemed to flip a switch that said try and of course the decision was backed up by referees boss and known NSW friend, Bill Harrigan.

There were some flaws in the Queensland game that they will want to rectify if they are to beat a NSW outfit confident in the knowledge they have what it takes to be seriously competitive against the most dominant team in Queensland history, even though the Maroons are not doing it with Darren Lockyer this time around.

Our early possession rate was incredibly poor and to play against a New South Wales outfit that now knows the weaknesses that the Queensland team displayed in game one will be dangerous to deal with. So more consistent ball control will be key.

Part of the poor ball control was a pretty shocking game by Billy Slater’s world beating standards where one spill lead to a try that ordinarily wouldn’t have happened if his game was right on the money, indeed it may well have been a riot for the Queensland team if that were the case.

Our forwards too during game one were made to do an incredible amount of hard work early on and that meant that for the entire game the key Queensland big men racked in enormous tackle counts across the board.  Queensland will need to do more to ensure that the work our forwards do in defense doesn’t tire them out for bringing the ball forward in a more concerted attack tonight.

Apart from being able to take advantage of the play more often as has been the case under the Maroons team for 6 years now and even prior to that but to differing levels of impact the Blues in the first outing absolutely had all of the pace against a Queensland team that may well have been suffering from complacency. There is a good chance though that the speed they lacked in the first game in Melbourne will not be required so much with wet weather being part of the recipe for tonight’s game.

Indeed though, this complacency may have been a key factor in the silly mistakes and lack of energy that the team displayed throughout the match, but mostly in the first half of the game so that will need to be put in check and it is hard to believe that a such a senior Queensland side would not be capable of closing that complacency gap for the game in Sydney tonight.

Sam Thaiday will clearly be missed tonight too as one of the tough enforcers that have been a strong leader of the muscle men in the pack but Thaiday is being replaced by experience and talent in the reshuffled 17.

Other than those areas, the Queensland team that won the first match by a whisker was a well-oiled and clearly experienced and tested machine that need to overcome psychological barriers perhaps much, much more than any physical deficit they will have against a comparatively young side full of energy and on fresher legs.

Nonetheless, there are not too many ingredients to add to the recipe to make the best Blues stew around.