Origin II proved rugby league is quality, even when it’s really quite rubbish

It might be possible to assemble more talent on a field and have them play worse than this, but it’d be hard.

Yet, as ever, Origin delivers. One of the great strengths of rugby league as a sport is that, even when it’s crap, it’s often good. The relationship between game quality and entertainment value is non-existent.

The highest quality games can be defensive borefests; the dreck can be chaotic brilliance.

It’s why Rochdale Hornets v Oldham continues after 130 years, because if quality was a factor, it would have stopped decades ago. State of Origin is meant to be better than that, of course, but it wasn’t.

New South Wales didn’t quite make it in the end, almost pulling off a record Origin comeback with four second half tries. In the end, they lost 26-24 to a Maroons side that didn’t score a point after the break to set up a Game 3 decider in Sydney.

Their dream died after a knock on had given them a fresh set on the Queensland line with 90 seconds to play, only for Payne Haas to lose the footy on play two. Why break the habit now?

The first half was bad football at any level: there were twelve errors from both sides, who were equally poor for the first half hour before the Maroons managed to stop dropping it in yardage and raced into a 26-6 lead.

Make no mistake about it, this was atrocious stuff. The weather played a part, but these are meant to be elite players. They looked like they’d never seen rain before.

With time running out at the end of the first half, Queensland lost 50m on one play and then dropped it. NSW tried for a field goal, but Zac Lomax’s effort landed somewhere in Fremantle.

On commentary, Mat Thompson called it an incredible first half, which it was, if only in the sense that it was not credible that the best assembly of talent available was playing like this.

The first Blues try was a shambles, a poor Jarome Luai kick that bounced fortunately for Brian To’o.

That was the five eighth’s third touch of the game, following a kick directly out on the full and a pass to nobody. It was all incredibly fortunate, but the Blues’ luck ended there.

Ashley Klein gave a staggering eight penalties to zero in Queensland’s favour in the first half, which decided the game.

It’s possible to debate the relative merits of the penalties, but the bottom line is that when a referee gives an 8-0 penalty count to a team, they win. It’s insurmountable.

It would have actually been nine had Nathan Cleary not successfully challenged a strip that wasn’t in the memory of man ever anything but a knock on.

Then again, he watched Cleary run straight through a hole created by Stefano Utoikamanu standing in the line, but gave the try anyway.

Thankfully, the Bunker intervened. They didn’t, however, when Luai appeared to eye-gouge Reuben Cotter but was merely put on report.

The thing about a crap Origin is that Queensland will always win it. The story of Origin since inception has been that the Maroons have a really high floor whereas the Blues have a higher ceiling.

There have been times, notably the Golden Generation era, where Queensland have had a high floor and a high ceiling, but mostly that has been the case. If the Blues show up, they win, but they do so infrequently enough that the Maroons are always in it.

This wasn’t so much a tactical failing as a collection of individual ones.

Laurie Daley would have told his players plenty of things to do, but none of it would have mattered when the discipline and ball control were that poor.

Stephen Crichton managed to be on the field for 40 minutes for zero runs, an error and five tackle involvements, two of which he missed. When he did take a run, he scored.

A lot of the night was like that.

Luai was an obvious target of blame, as he managed multiple penalties and errors, but he also picked up four try assists.

Latrell Mitchell misread a pass so badly that his head was down before the Maroons had even crossed the line behind him, but also had crucial hands in tries.

Queensland were much the same.

Kurt Capewell was a liability but grabbed the try that ended up being the difference. Tino Fa’asuamaleaui’s handling was horrendous but managed over 30 tackles without a miss.

Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow iced the moments that came to him, with several high takes that questioned why everyone else seemed to find it so hard, only to fumble one that came along the deck.

Only Cameron Munster, who showed great leadership to wrest some control from a fundamentally chaotic game, and To’o, who scored a hat trick, could say they had a good game.

That concept of a good game was written all over this. It was a really, really bad example of elite rugby league. Poor handling, bad defending, truly awful kicking, all compounded by mystifying officiating.

Yet we still ended up with an enthralling game. NSW came back from 26-6 down to 26-24, got a heap of shots at the line and blew them all.

Queensland had ample opportunity to ice the game, but kept dropping the footy straight back to their opponents. They ended up winning by virtue of goalkicking, losing the match five tries to four.

Eventually, time ran out and we will go to Sydney for a decider. Rugby league continues to produce, even when it doesn’t at all.

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