The Blues might have had their fair share of heartbreak with the loss of Joseph Sua’ali’i early in Game 1 but they bounced back with one of the all-time great Origin performances, along with the best first half of Origin ever, Wednesday night – 34-0, twelve points ahead of Queensland’s 21-0 halftime lead all the way back in 1983. Much of that boiled down to what may be the career best performance, at both club and representative level, for Mitch Moses, who made his mark in Origin history by being both the first halfback to be selected from a bottom-ranked NRL team since Andrew Johns in 2005 and the first player to rival Brad Fittler’s 2000 record for four Origin assists.

It wasn’t just Mitch’s kicking either but his aggression, leadership and sheer vision that set the Blues up for victory, epitomised by a pair of inspired shots on Tom Dearden, the first of which not only stole possession back after Queensland received their first penalty thirty minutes in, but led to arguably the most inspirational New South Wales try of the first half. The Blues couldn’t have asked for more from Nathan Cleary – under Moses’ command, they were as good as they have ever been. Queensland may well go on to win the series at Suncorp but they can’t possibly play a better game.

In fact, the sublimity of the Blues’ performance this evening skyrocketed them into the realm of the 2010s Queensland dynasty, while the visitors exuded all the frustration of New South Wales at their absolute lowest – especially in the ten minutes after the break, when tensions escalated into a full-on (almost old-school) fracas that saw Liam Martin and Pat Carrigan sent to the bin. It’s not fair to compare the first and second halves, since you can’t improve on perfection, but this also marked the point where the Blues started to leak penalties, and occasionally struggle for the right balance between outright agro and carelessness.

Still, the game as a whole was one of the best ever played by New South Wales, who voted, prophetically, to take the kickoff. The Maroons marched it up the park, Daly Cherry Evans  booted his first one just outside his forty, and Dylan Edwards received his first Origin touch as Dearden monstered him to ground. Zac Lomax looked for the offload at the thirty but failed to find it, Payne Haas was the first player into enemy territory, and Moses launched his first kick from much the same spot as DCE, on the brink of the Queensland forty

Murray Taulagi would receive a good share of Moses’ kicks tonight, and took this first one well, while the Maroons opted for the first sweep four plays in, with Reece Walsh sending it out to Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, who was held up on the edge by a Lomax-Stephen Crichton combo albeit not without hitting Blues territory in the process. Walsh kept up the momentum with a kick, and Moses put boot to ball at the end of the next set as well, this time outside his own forty, as Taulagi proved himself up to the task of collecting it once more too.

Ben Hunt tried to build his men some position with a 40/20 at the end of the next Maroons set but didn’t get the angle right, meaning Edwards didn’t have to work too hard to scoop it up seven metres within the field of play. Latrell Mitchell got his first touch two plays later, muscling the footy over halfway through Lindsay Collins and Carrigan, and from there Edwards started to warm up with a sweep to the right, where Critta disposed of the Hammer and made his way up the sideline to meet Dearden and Walsh inside the ten.

Unfortunately he opted to force the offload to Lomax, producing the first stoppage in play, and providing Queensland with a scrum just outside their ten, along with their first glimpse of the tryline, when Carrigan reined in an overlong Hunt ball, setting the scene for Jaydn Su’A to break his way up the middle, only for Edwards to bring him down with a last-ditch legs tackle, in his first heroic moment in the sky blue jersey. DCE tried to recover with a chip to the right, but with Coates missing the aerial contact, the Blues were working it off their ten.

One of Moses’ subtle but critical moments of leadership came to the fore now, with a tough run to hit the ten that galvanised his men into the set that followed. It ended with Collins swinging an arm into Crichton’s face on the final play, as Cotter came in low, and just like that Haas was pounding at the red zone, where he offloaded to Jurbo, before Murray dragged four Maroons to the ten. From there the Blues swung left, as Luai dragged DCE to within three metres of the line, and won six again for his troubles.

Amped up by that manhandling, DCE had a good defensive stint on this third repeat set, shutting down Crichton in the corner, and then holding up an enterprising To’o back at the ten, although not without his men conceding yet another six tackles. The Blues simply had to score here, and the Maroons knew it, escalating the defence as Dearden slammed into Edwards on the left, and DCE’s trilogy of terrific tackles ended with a heroic David-on-Goliath shot on Haas, Walsh storming in to lend his support.

It was starting to look like New South Wales were running out of options. All this position on the Queensland line had tired out the Blues too, who were losing some of their vision and purpose, so they did well to secure some breathing-space when Luai sent it off the side of the boot and Walsh found himself unable to ferry it back into the field of play. If they didn’t score now, the Blues would concede all that momentum back to the visitors, who congealed their defensive wall with the first few tackles after DCE went long with the first dropout tonight.

They only hit the ten by play four, but that was enough for the first try, as well as the first of Moses’ four assists – a beautiful short ball that Martin collected at the millisecond he changed his line, not unlike his combo with Luai in Adelaide, totally wrong-footing both Su’A and Dearden, who could only get fingertips to him as he smashed over the chalk. Lomax slotted the conversion straight through, and DCE and Jeremiah Nanah showed their frustration by bashing Martin back over the ten at the beginning of the restart.

By the time Moses put boot to ball he’d barely cleared his thirty, although a decent chase meant that Taulagi was only at the brink of the red zone by the time the Blues met him. Still, this was a good recovery set from Queensland, as Carrigan hit enemy territory on the fifth, and DCE did well with the kick, although Edwards was up to it. Meanwhile, Reece Robson built on a very strong opening at dummy half with a tough charge to put his men over halfway, laying the platform for Luai to arrive at the Maroons’ thirty for his first kick this evening.

The Blues now showcased some of their most committed defence so far, as Angus Crichton put in a punishing tackle on Xavier Coates run on the line, and Robson and Haas followed by pummeling Walsh, who would go on to have one of the more painful games of his representative career. To be fair, Reece made up for it with some good sideline play on the last, but Tualagi’s sideline kick was struck much too hard, bouncing over the dead ball line as Edwards pulled back in goal.

This paved the way for a stellar Blues set, with New South Wales now really rolling, as Murray glimpsed a break in the line, and Luai kicked again, this time from the twenty, and with an even better result. Whereas Coates had just made it back into the field of play, where he’d met Crichton’s rousing reception, Hammer was dragged back in goal by Critta, who did well to allow the Dolphins fullback to catch the ball, and so provide the momentum needed to make the dropout legitimate. Martin also waited until just the right moment to give the Bulldogs skipper a hand.  

Even worse for the Queenslanders, Hammer was grabbing his shoulder as DCE again went long with the kick, which Haas brought to the third, Bizza to the twenty, and Turbo further up the middle. The Blues then shifted left, where Latrell had his first superstar moment, drawing in Val Holmes, who turned too late, and also Coates, who never had a chance once the South Sydney icon flicked the no-look backhander out for To’o to pop across in the corner. Lomax capped it off with the first of three beautiful sideline kicks, steering the Steeden out to the left only for it to correct midway through the trajectory and sail straight through.

Moses brought the restart to a similarly rousing conclusion, launching a soaring kick that initially looked like a standard end-over-ender, only to split the defence with a crazy ricochet over the right sideline. DCE was barking out orders at the start of the set, and tried to respond with an inspired kick of his own, but Bizza caught it just inside his thirty, while Latrell not only survived a Cotter-led effort to drive him ten metres back but won the second penalty of the match. With Crichton shrugging off a few players, and the Blues shifting from sideline to sideline, the match had reached its next acceleration point.

It all ended with Moses, who took this escalating volatility, and condensed it into the calmest kick of the night – a boot to the right edge, where Lomax made the most of his 6 feet 3 inches to jump over Taulagi, take the footy in both hands, in the best specky of the year, and bring it to earth. While he didn’t convert his own try, New South Wales were still leading 16-0, and the sublime simplicity of this combination, paired with all the grunt work that had preceded it, rocketed the Blues into the next echelon of confidence.

In any case, Lomax made up for the miss by sticking his boot on the sideline to take the kick, giving his men a bump up the park with 65% of possession and 13-0 play-the-balls in the red zone, as Hammer headed to sheds to attend to his shoulder injury, where he’d remain until the second half, and Kurt Capewell trotted to the centres to become the first Warrior to represent Queensland since Jacob Lillyman in 2017. Four plays in, the Blues got another brief breather, as a play was called back and Luai took thirty seconds to attend to his shoelace, and once again this turned out to be the consolidation they needed.

For the very next play saw Moses nail his third try assist, as he glanced up, noticed Walsh out of position on the left, carried the footy deep into the line, and popped through the kick to provide Bizza with a double. Lomax slotted it through the posts from the left sideline and the Blues had their most points ever in the first half of an Origin game, at 22-0, while surpassing the 1983 Maroons’ 21-0 record. Madge was now looking even tenser than Slater in the stands, desperate for nothing to go wrong, especially once the first chink in New South Wales’ armour seemed to come with a lost ball from Edwards early in the count.

Nevertheless, the Captain’s Challenge proved Edwards was correct in claiming that Moeiaki Fotuaika had shoved him while he was trying to play the ball, and so the hosts proceeded to a Luai grubber that Walsh managed to clean up centimetres over the chalk. The Maroons got their first penalty a beat later with a Moses offside, and Harry Grant joined the fray, but any question of a comeback was quelled when Mitch delivered the tackle of the night, and perhaps of his career, wrapping himself aroud Dearden on play three to force the footy free.

Latrell ran forty metres to congratulate his halfback, a rousing prelude to the Blues’ most inspirational try so far, and the apotheosis to all the vision and precision of their opening forty. A mere play later, Robson found DCE wrapped around his legs, but still managed to flick it around the back to Edwards, who popped it on for Latrell to cross untouched despite Walsh’s best efforts, in an instantly iconic Origin moment, especially once Lomax made it three from three from the left sideline, and Spencer Leniu drove it straight up the middle on the restart.

The Blues were now as good as they’ve ever been, and were starting to get just a little ahead of themselves, as Martin dumped Cotter on his back two tackles into the next Maroons set, and was lucky not to get sent to the bin, especially after Roger Tuivasa-Sheck’s experience the weekend before. Queensland now had their best field position of the whole game, with a full set inside the opposition twenty, but it came to a brutal end when Critta reached out his full wingspan to intercept, fumble and eventually rein in a Su’A offload on tackle two.

For a moment it looked like he might take it all the way, busting through the line, slicing into enemy territory up the right edge, and arriving at the red zone before the Maroons finally scrambled their defence into gear. Even so, Moses put Leniu into the ten on play three, where he would have crossed if not for a stellar Foutaika legs tackle, Robson muscled it to five out, and the Blues shifted left, where for the second time Luai defied Walsh with the boot, although this time the struggling fullback had to bump the grubber dead instead of grounding it in touch.

With two minutes until the break, DCE went short, Bizza collected it, and it was almost as important for the Blues to prevent Queensland scoring a breakaway try as planting one down themselves. Their best possible outcome ensued, as they drifted right on play four, where Critta put Lomax across, and New South Wales into the thirties, in the simplest and most standard try of the afternoon, more like a park footy training run than the Origin cauldron. Edwards set it up well with the catch-and-pass, while Critta barely noticed Dearden around his legs as he flicked it out to Lomax.

There was no way that the second stanza could have matched the first but the Blues still did well, even if they found themselves faced with two tricky kicking sequences upon their return from the sheds. The first came for Latrell, who delivered an amazing chase on Coates, but was just a little too enthusiastic with the tackle, thereby gifting Queensland an early bout of position. The next came for Edwards, who received Walsh’s subsequent kick in both hands but lost it backwards on the ground, gifting the Maroons a scrum feed from their twenty.

Queensland only had 1-33 play-the-balls inside the red zone as Carrigan found himself sandwiched by Robson and Yeo, in what turned out to be the last convincing run of the set, which ended with the second great Moses-Dearden shot – a little less dramatic than the first, and closer to the turf, but still enough to force the footy free in New South Wales’ end. The Blues had curtailed another brief bout of Queensland possession, and Moses knew he was making history now, rising from a prostrate Dearden roaring in triumph, and gesticulating wildly to the troops as they embarked on the next set, high on the best game of his career.

No surprise then that he played a major role in this set, cleaning up a loose pass and sending it out to Martin, and then taking another run himself. Unexpectedly, Queensland circled the wagons enough to force a changeover before the kick, galvanising Su’A into an effort to clamber through the defence, and then a flamboyant double pump from DCE, although Latrell and Luai were in place to shut down Holmes at the end of the sweep. Yet with Dearden choosing to run it on the last, and Robson slamming in for a Cowboy-on-Cowboy tackle, the Maroons also failed to get to their kick, and so the scores were settled.

Of course, Mitch was the next man to get boot to ball, and while there wasn’t much depth on the trajectory, it led to the most volatile moment of the game, as Critta made a second kick up the right sideline, and then grappled DCE right on the Maroons line, the Queensland captain responding with a big palm to the neck. Like Latrell’s hit two minutes in, it felt like the Blues were losing the balance between calculated aggro and ill discipline here, although the adrenalin quickly spread to both sides, despite a final warning from Ashley Klein.

It didn’t make a difference a play later, when Leniu made mammoth contact to force Su’A to cough up the Steeden, Martin added his heft, and added a head rub for good measure, and players from both sides came in to have a go at it. The Blues were now playing like dynasty Queenslanders, while the Maroons had all the agony of New South Wales at their lowest, as Martin and Carrigan both headed to the bin – a bit ridiculous for Martin, and probably also for Carrigan – as Queensland received the penalty, and we were down to twelve on twelve.

Leniu picked up right where he left on on the next tackle, coming in hard on Fotuaika’s legs, before Walsh opened up the left edge, where Hammer showed that he was fighting fit after returning after the break. The Blues’ ill discipline started to make a difference now, as Moses came in late on Walsh, grabbed him around the waist, and lifted him clean off the turf, providing Queensland with a good attacking platform, which became a great attacking platform once they received six again midway through the count.

The visitors now had as good a chance as they were going to get, and while the Blues summoned some epic defence, including Edwards repelling Coates at speed on the right edge, hanging backwards over the chalk as his team mates rushed in for support, the set ended with Edwards batting it in touch as DCE’s kicking game proved to be too good. The Maroons had their first dropout of the night, and while Latrell went short, with plenty of hang time, the Hammer still recovered it, before Cotter dragged it into the ten, and Grant gave Leniu a run for his money.

These opening three plays were a good enough pivot for Queensland to shift right, where finally Nanai crashed over through Luai, garnering his men their first try of the night, off a terrific assist from DCE – brief dummy and short ball, tempting Latrell to turn his shoulder just a little too far to the outside, pre-empting a play to the wing. The Maroons needed a good restart now, and ideally back-to-back tries, and they got a crack with a Robson flop early in the count. Holmes made a burst up the right but couldn’t get through, and Walsh tried to set up more space for Hammer but found Yeo in his way.

Walsh had another shot a play later with a pass out to Su’A but was too rapid from dummy half, meaning by the time big Jaydn caught-and-passed it the footy sailed over the sideline instead of finding Taulagi on the chest. The Blues had the ball back, and a focused run from Edwards on tackle two to get them back in the groove, while Haas compounded it by dragging Cotter, Dearden and Su’A for five post-contacts, setting up Moses to boot it at the Queensland forty – and Lomax to come agonisingly close to getting it back.

If Luai hadn’t been directly in front of him he might have secured it, but as it was he had to wrap both arms around the Penrith half, with the result that the Steeden hit him on the head and ricocheted back to Crichton, following a brief bobble into Fotuaika’s head that became the point of contention in the Captain’s Challenge that New South Wales failed. Coates may have copped some enormous contact from Haumole Olakau’atu, who’d joined the fray at the 49^th minute, but there was no doubt that Queensland were starting to build now.

Sure enough, they finally nailed the left sideline play they’d been aiming for all night, as Hammer set up a break for Taulagi, who booted it back in field for the Dolphins icon to complete his splendid comeback from his opening shoulder injury with his ninth Origin try – untouched, directly beneath the crossbars. Holmes was always going to convert from directly in front, and so the Maroons were at 12-34 as the hour mark arrived, beginning their restart with a big sweeping sideline to sideline play, culminating with Hammer charging into Moses.

They swept again on tackle four, drawing Crichton in for a monster low shot on Holmes, and a fend into Cotter’s face for good measure – just the individual effort the Blues needed to reassert their first half authority. Yeo, Martin and Crichton had their men into the red zone by midway through the set, and Yeo brought it to the ten through Grant and Cotter, in one of his best sets of the game. From there Luai was five out from first receiver, and the Blues swept right, where the push ended in the most poetic possible way – with Edwards putting the heartbreak of Game 1 behind him with his inaugural Origin try, off a sublime Moses assist.

As with the kick that had put Lomax over in the corner in the first act, this was a masterclass of calmness and experience, as Moses glanced to the wing, read the play immediately, was already barking orders from dummy half, and launched a wide one across to the Penrith fullback, who in turn dodged outside Hammer, avoided the ankle tap, tucked it under the right arm, made the most subliminal of inflections towards a wing sweep, and then sliced through the line alone, coming to ground beneath a desperate Walsh.

Lomax may have hooked the kick towards the left, but the Blues were still smiling at 38-12, and had more than recovered the rhythm of the game. Even better, Queensland went short with the kickoff, sending it over the sideline on the full, where Connor Watson could have nabbed it on his way to the park, bringing his fresh energy into the fray fourteen minutes from the end. He took a run immediately to break into Maroons territory before Edwards scooped up a Haas offload and almost reached the thirty, leaving it to Olaka’atu to making the driving run needed to finally crack the red zone.

Haas now added another charge up the middle, and supplemented it with an offload to Yeo, who in turn sent it through Moses to Luai, as the Steeden then moved through half the Blues and ended in the hands of Watson, who brought it to the brink of the ten, where he played it one-handed. Again, the footy seemed to move through half the New South Wales side, before ending up with Luai in the middle, who didn’t strike the kick all that well, albeit still setting up one of the best spectacles of the game – Latrell getting both hands around Walsh and dumping him on the turf.

Latrell had learned from that shot after the break, coming as close as possible to excess force here, and his example would have likely roused the Blues into something special if Queensland hadn’t received the next penalty, when Martin came in late on DCE with some pretty minimal shoulder contact. It was late in the game, but the Maroons looked sharp now, anxious to make up for Walsh’s humiliation, and Holmes would have crossed on the second if not for a Latrell trysaver, while only Watson’s freshness on the field and a superhuman performance from Haas was enough to prevent the Hammer two tackles later.

Nevertheless, the Maroons were cresting, and once they received two straight six agains it felt almost inevitable when Taulagi crossed untouched with a little over ten minutes on the clock, bringing them to 18 with another kick from Holmes, who with this conversion passed Michael O’Connor for top Origin pointscorer behind Johnathan Thurston and Mal Meninga. Meanwhile, Queensland didn’t get to the end of their restart, thanks to a rare miss from the Hammer, who reached out his arm for the footy and lost it backwards, granting New South Wales a scrum from thirty-five out.  

Yet they were flagging now, as Moses delivered his only real subpar kick of the evening, so it was fortuitous that his men got a little extra position early in their next set, off a swinging arm from Carrigan on Lomax. Murray followed with a play-the-ball error in the Queensland ten, with no Captain’s Challenge to fall back on, and DCE struck his next one too hard, allowing To’o to gather it ages before the chase arrived. Ever the hero of this game, however, Moses had his last great moment on the penultimate play of the following set, when he delivered a superb sequel to Latrell’s hit on Walsh, slamming the Broncos fullback to the ground so drastically that he had to walk off the impact in backplay.

It was the final big moment of the match, even if Crichton was still busting tackles 77 minutes in. Moses had his last kick with fifty seconds left, Latrell ankle tapped Walsh to slow down the final Queensland set, and Dearden, Moses’ biggest casualty, was appropriately enough the last man with ball in hand. After so much New South Wales disappointment over the years, and so many missed opportunities, this truly and finally felt like the cathartic game the Blues have been looking for ever since the great Maroons dynasty of the 2010s. Queensland may still win the series up in Suncorp, but they won’t deliver a better performance.