State of Origin analysis: The tactics and moments where Game I will be won and lost

Mike Meehall Wood
State of Origin coaches 2025

Will it be Billy Slater or Laurie Daley coming out on top in Game 1 of State of Origin 2025?

There’s really two things that matter in Origin, at least as far as analysis goes.

There’s who you pick, which is 75% of the struggle given the length of the camps and then how you use them on the night, which is the other quarter.

Whereas week-to-week NRL is a highly systematised sport, where just about every move is scripted at some level, Origin is a three match series with next to no pre-planned play, because you can’t build that in the limited contact time they get beforehand.

In fact, if you were splitting hairs, you might suggest that Origin is actually three standalone games, because no coach would pick a squad for Games 2 and 3 before the series, given how much can and will change in between.

Think of the regular season as an orchestra, where you get to practice every part and refine the symphony over time, compared to a jazz jam session where you get the best players together and trust them to sort it out.

Coaching Origin is more Count Basie than Toscanini, then, so it helps to get the players right.

Basie might have known a bit about the blues, but he’d have a struggle making much sense of the team that Laurie Daley has picked, at least in the forward pack.

Billy Slater at least has the excuse of a more limited talent pool – such is the lot of the Queensland coach – but even so, some of his choices are also highly confusing.

NSW Blues

Back in charge of NSW despite just six wins from 15 attempts the last time around, Daley is again blessed with the Blues’ inability to pick a bad backline, but his forward selections are confusing at best.

The 1-7 picks itself, and it’s more a case of which of the many good options you leave out. Had he included Tom Trbojevic and James Tedesco, for example, ahead of Zac Lomax and Dylan Edwards, there might have been a few quibbles but it would be hard to suggest that it was a weak side.

Ditto Jarome Luai and Mitch Moses in the halves: they’re both excellent and it’s really a question of taste. In typical Blues fashion, this luxury allows Daley to backflip if they lose Game 1.

The pack, however, is highly incoherent. Given that Origin is one game, and a chaotic game at that, the best policy is always to cover your options as widely as possible.

We like to think of it as picking the best players and letting them go, but for the forwards,it’s a little more complicated. Forwards tire and have to be replaced, so what you actually do is count how many top level minutes you think you can get out of your options, then count backwards from 160 to make it work.

Essentially, you need 2 x 80 minutes from front-rowers, whoever they may be. Looking at the four guys that NSW have picked – Payne Haas, Mitch Barnett, Spencer Leniu and Max King – that’s certainly possible.

Haas and Barnett are long minutes props, each averaging around an hour per match, King clocks in at around 50 and Leniu at about half an hour, even when he starts.

That gets you 200 minutes – all good, right? Well, not really.

Origin is, as anyone will tell you, miles faster than regular NRL. You can take ten minutes off everyone just for the speed of it.

In Game 3 last year, when three of the four played, you got 56 out of Haas, 48 from Barnett, 26 from Leniu and 23 from Jurbo, who, in this analogy, is Max King. That makes 150 in total, with the rest filled out by Isaah Yeo and Cam Murray through the middle.

This year, it looks like a straight two on, two off situation, so the plan is likely to get the same production but with either a bit more King or Yeo subbing in again, though there isn’t a clear plan for who plays lock in that scenario.

Maybe Liam Martin plays some middle? Or Connor Watson at 13? This is all to be decided.

That might be fine, except for the second thing that always, always happens in Origin, especially to sides that lose: concussions.

You can almost guarantee that someone will get HIAed out of a game, either for 15 minutes or the whole thing, and probably relatively early on.

Given that the central reason tries are scored in Origin is fatigue through the middle, it’s a huge risk to take.

One could double that by adding that there isn’t a recognised back on the bench, and all the statistics will tell you that losing a back to concussion in the first half without a replacement is basically game over. You lose almost every time.

Hudson Young is the fourth, but he only plays as an edge forward – and basically nobody in the NRL, save for Des Hasler when he’s having his semi-regular tiff with David Fifita, picks an edge on the bench. If you’re following the tactical decision making of the Gold Coast Titans, it’s probably worth reassessing the plan.

They’re 80 minute guys, just like Martin and Angus Crichton. Young is probably in there to cover centre too, in the latest example of NSW thinking that the hardest position to defend is the easiest.

Watson is on the bench as a generic 9 replacement with Reece Robson, and theoretically he’s also the back cover and the lock cover.

One guy, obviously, can only play one position at once, so if a back goes down, what happens to the rotation?

Daley had a clear option for this available in Keaon Koloamatangi, a career edge who has been playing prop, but left it aside.

The Souths forward is essentially two positions in one, and had he been selected over King, Daley could have chosen an extra utility back – Tom Trbojevic the obvious one – or if included over Young, he would have had a fifth middle to help his rotation.

That might have been Terrell May, who was an impact middle before becoming a Haas-clone minutes prop, but apparently his lateral movement is poor or something.

It sounds a lot like they don’t like May on a team culture level, which is hilarious for a side that has picked Spencer Leniu.

All of this will show up in defence.

For all that the Sydney media were brief that May’s defensive movement isn’t what it could be, he’s going to have to work out how to either re-purpose an edge as a middle to fill space for a period or push his four guys beyond their reasonable limits, which is how points are conceded.

There’s probably another question mark in there about Robson, who isn’t in the same league as Api Koroisau in pure dummy half skill and probably behind Wayde Egan as well, but at least he has incumbency on his side.

In attack, it’s commendable that the best players have been picked, albeit almost impossible not to given the depth in the NSW talent pool.

The back three will run hard and, if they don’t, Moses can kick you out of trouble. Once you’re at the right end, there’s so much talent that somebody will do something.

The creative theory in representative sport is either that you get guys in from the same club side and hope that works – Valeriy Lobanovskyi famously did this in soccer with the Soviet Union and Dynamo Kyiv – or you pick the best of the best and let them sort it out themselves, which you will remember from every Queensland team ever.

Brad Fittler’s plan of turning the Blues into the Panthers failed spectacularly, so it makes sense that Daley has gone the other way. Origin is one game, so pick moments guys and hope they have one.

He has left himself wide open for disaster to strike, especially if someone gets injured, but that never happens in Origin, right? Oh.

Queensland Maroons

Queensland’s selection dramas tend to be less dramatic than New South Wales’, simply because they have fewer options to pick from.

One of the most enduring storylines of Queensland lore is the ability of unheralded players to grow a leg in the famous Maroon jersey, which turns competent first graders into Origin greats simply with the addition of a few cans of XXXX.

There’s a kernel of tactical truth in this: even though Origin is fundamentally more about the individuals you pick than the collectively – essentially the opposite of regular rugby league – Queensland get a head start because they inherit great cohesion across years thanks to their relative paucity of talent.

If Daly Cherry-Evans or Cam Munster have a bad game, they’ll still get picked the next time because Billy Slater has fewer other options.

If Mitch Moses had a bad game, there’s a high chance that he’ll get dropped and Jarome Luai, Nicho Hynes or Matt Burton will come in, which suits the short-termism of the concept but kills long-term cohesion.

It helps that DCE and Munster are generational greats, but even if they weren’t, they’d become a decent partnership over time just by dint of playing together often enough.

They’ve got 22 matches together, which is essentially a whole season in the halves, just played at rep level. DCE also has that many with Holmes, plus 19 with Tino Fa’asuamaleaui and 17 with Lindsay Collins.

The most experienced Blue is Nathan Cleary on 14 – total, not shared.

Of his teammates who have never played for Penrith, the most games in common is 14 with Angus Crichton, the most recent of which was the 2022 World Cup with the Kangaroos. It’s hardly familiar.

Tactically, a good way to think about this is that Queensland generally have the higher floor, but NSW generally have a higher ceiling.

In 2025, that rings fairly true. While Slater has named three debutants – Robert Toia, Beau Fermor and Trent Loeiro – to NSW’s one – Max King – their collective number of Origin appearances is a lot higher.

The spine of DCE, Munster, Harry Grant and Kalyn Ponga has a lot of games at this level, as does their pack and most of the other guys.

Where the Blues can try to transpose club partnerships to rep level, the Maroons always have that to some extent because they pick guys from the same clubs.

If we say there are five Queensland clubs – the four actual ones plus Melbourne, essentially Sunshine State South – then everyone except Toia, DCE and Lindsay Collins has been through the systems of one of them.

To return to the soccer analogy from above, this is the Croatia effect: they have been the consistently most overachieving nation in the most global of sports not because their guys all play for the same team, but because they only have two real academies, Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split, meaning all their players have known each other since they were kids, taking that cohesion with them to elite level.

Continuity matters and Slater recognises that.

His selections generally reflect this, staying loyal to guys that might not be at their best at club level – Reuben Cotter, Jeremiah Nani and Mo Fotuaika for example – because they can plug and play with the other blokes.

Indeed, Nanai was dropped from the NRL because of his terrible defence, and while he has improved somewhat, it’s hard to see him getting picked on form. It’s surprising in this regard that Jaydn Su’A, who has been one of the best in a bad lot for the Dragons, doesn’t retain his spot, though that has allowed Fermor, a strong individual in a poor Titans side, to come in.

The Koloamatangi conundrum from NSW is also evident in Slater’s forward selection.

Queensland will roll with their 13, Pat Carrigan, as an auxiliary prop, so he needs to find 240 minutes of middle.

He’s banking on Titans front rowers Tino Fa’asuamaleaui and Fotuaika to do the heavy lifting with Collins – short of a gallop fitness-wise – off the bench, presumably adding Loiero at some point to allow Patty to go forward.

Slater clearly wants Fermor in there somewhere, but given the rotations, Corey Horsburgh would probably have been a better option given his impact value and ability to cover middle and edge.

Cotter is more of a utility than anyone NSW has in their back row, so Fermor could play there while Reuben goes in, but one would presume that the Cowboys forward is also the backup hooker, so that’s a plan fraught with danger.

The knock on Big Red is that he’s a bit of a loose cannon, but lore would tell you that guys like him are exactly what you need in Origin, while the team sheet confirms that Slater isn’t bothered by this as he’s selected Loiero, owner of one of the all-time great brain explosions just a few weeks ago at Magic Round, where he gave away a succession of bonkers penalties to lose Melbourne the game.

Horsburgh is tough, plays two positions, adds energy and is, cliche klaxon at the ready, made for Origin. Loiero is confusing. Kulikefu Finefeuiaki, named in the extended bench, also ticks all the boxes that Corey does, but with less experience.

The HIA issue also looms with Queensland. They’ve picked Collins, who has been injured and has a long history of head knocks, potentially robbing the side of a prop, while only naming one other player who plays the position in the week-to-week comp.

It’s splitting hairs a bit, because Fa’asuamaleaui is listed as 13 while Carrigan is listed in the front row, but either way, they’re probably one light.

Slater has at least gone for a back on the bench, though his selection of half Tom Dearden there is a little perplexing.

Neither Munster nor Cherry-Evans are ever going to come off unless forced to, so it’s hard to see how the Cowboys star gets on.

This is a very NSW move – see Hynes, Nicho and Gutherson, Clint – of putting in a guy because he’s good enough, even if you don’t know how to use them, then throwing them in when you’re losing.

Dearden is good cover, but one feels like, were other options available, someone else would fill that role. There’s an argument that Kurt Capewell, who brings continuity and a proven utility value at both centre and backrow, could maybe have done this where Fermor is.

The backs is where Queensland’s depth issue bites. They were already down Reece Walsh – easily replaced by Ponga – but lost Selwyn Cobbo and Murray Taulagi out of their preferred back five, so have called in Toia, the earliest debutant in terms of games played since Payne Haas.

There’s an argument that Toia isn’t even the best Maroons-qualified rookie centre available, with Jaxson Purdue impressing at the Cowboys, and he brings with him the ability to also cover half and fullback, where he has played most of his juniors.

Perhaps most egregious is that, to accommodate Toia, Slater has moved Val Holmes to the wing.

Holmes was an exceptional winger once upon a time, but hasn’t played there for years and locks down a centre position, which is a much harder place to defend than one further out.

If you were committed to throwing in a debutant, then it’s a lot easier to slot someone like Xavier Savage onto a wing. It’s asking a lot of an eight-game rookie.

The idea of Toia outside of either Nanai, never the best defensively, and Cotter, a repackaged middle who you might also ask to jump in at dummy half, against a rampaging Latrell Mitchell or Stephen Crichton, should give Maroons fans the fear.

The Roosters youngster isn’t bad defensively but it’s a huge ask of a kid with just eight NRL games.

This is all presuming that Slater runs from the team in the order they were selected.

Should Kurt Mann come onto the bench, things look a bit more sensible as he is a genuine utility, big enough for the middle but smart enough to slot in at a pinch in the backline.

It’s possible that Jesse Arthars jumps in from the reserves – Auckland, that’s in Queensland! – and Holmes moves in one. Finefeuiaki might be elevated to the bench as a genuine middle/edge utility too.

If they stay as listed, there’s multiple big questions. Queensland have to get selection right given their starting point. As it stands, it’s hard to see that they have.