McQueen kicks the ball ahead, Hayne runs, gathers, fumbles; we all hope that somehow the ball will fall beyond his reach, but he regathers and runs the ball dead, the siren sounds, the dream for nine consecutive series is over and Queensland television viewer’s dry retch as Hayne stands Messiah like on the boundary fence. Apologies for reliving last Wednesday’s nightmare, but what the game showed was a team full of resolve and passion can beat a stronger team on paper. At the beginning of the series many New South Wales supporters didn’t believe they would win. However after 8 beatings, hearing they didn’t have the passion, discipline or desire, the post game celebrations showed that the Cockroaches had wanted to win this series real bad.
Can Central Queensland take something from the game? Part of the reason Queensland bought into State of Origin so fiercely was because we saw most of our best go to NSW to play and then wear the blue to play against us, sometimes giving us (Qld) a flogging. It hurt; it appeared we just had to cop it, hoping to catch them on an off day to beat them. State of Origin was payback, 2 or 3 consecutive series was never going to be enough; 10 might have been. However NSW finally felt the hurt, what Brett Morris with a dislocated shoulder did to stop Boyd scoring in Game 1 demonstrated they had enough of the losing hurt, they were going to put their bodies on the line no matter how battered to win.
Central Queensland has had enough of seeing most of the benefits of our resources going to the south of the state, including jobs and having to bid for a share of the Royalty for the Regions funds. CQ, as an origin of the billion dollar royalty payments, should be getting a bigger return, not having to bid for it; loose wording about ending 100% FIFO is not enough. Its time CQ displayed what NSW did in Game 1 and 2 and put it on the line to get a fairer share. Resolve and passion can win over against the odds if you want it bad enough.