New South Wales 38-18 Queensland
A dominant New South Wales side scored 6 consecutive tries to achieve victory in Game 2 of State Of Origin 2024, taking the series to a final decider.
Over in Brisbane, Story and Victoria Bridges, City Hall, the Tropical Dome & Reddacliff Place sculptures were all lit up maroon from sunset at 5:03pm.
Back in Melbourne, the event begun just under 2.5 hours prior to kick-off, at 5:40pm, with an exhibition Combined All-Schools under-18’s boys’ rugby league match between Silver & Blue. Silver won 30-28.
At 7:15pm was the coin toss before at 7:30pm, the pre-match entertainment began. A light and pyrotechnic show introduced Indigenous performances before the State Of Origin Shield was brought out onto the field by NSW & QLD children. The Temper Trap then performed with their iconic song, Sweet Disposition, televised. 4-time basketball Aussie Olympian, Patty Mills, then brought out the match ball. After the spectators were encouraged to cheer out the slogans of their respective teams, the pre-match entertainment concluded with pyrotechnics for the stadium crowd of 90,084 and the multi-million sized TV audience.
The Queensland side then ran out onto the field past flame signs saying ‘QLD’ before the New South Wales side ran out onto the field through a banner past ‘NSW’ flame signs.
The customary Welcome To Country, conducted by Aunty Joy Murphy and performance of the National Anthem, sung by Sheridan Adams, then immediately preceded the main match,
Anyway, to the game. Light rain at kick-off but after 10 minutes, it led to heavy falls of 6 NSW tries, with all but 1 converted. Completed dominating the first half, with a short pause for Jerome Luai to put on a shoe that fell off, NSW’s series of converted tries began with Liam Martin finding a hole in Queensland’s defence to open the Blues’ account. From his reaction, which repeated with every NSW try scorer, NSW was pumped up. 7 minutes later, Brian To’o squeezed into the left corner to reach 12-0. In the 23rd minute, Zac Lomax reached for the heavens for a kick on the final tackle to score NSW’s 3rd try, which he didn’t convert.
In the 24th minute, NSW dragged Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow over the tryline, resulting in a shoulder injury. Whilst initially looking dislocated, he only need a brief break and some painkillers before returning to the field. However, a few minutes later, he went back off the field into the changing rooms and didn’t return.
With Jerome Luai’s shoes fitted back on, a kick through Queensland’s defence by Mitchell Moses towards the left corner in the 26th minute saw Brian To’o score his 2nd try increasing NSW’s lead to 22 points. This try, in hindsight, sealed the victory for NSW.
To cap it off, in his 1st State Of Origin match since 2021, Latrell Mitchell ran with the ball from the 10-metre mark to score another try for NSW increasing the lead to 28 points. A lapse in QLD’s wing defence on NSW’s right side saw the 1st half conclude with a 6th try for NSW scored once again by Zac Lomax, who didn’t miss the conversion this time.
At half-time, the score was 34-0 in favour of New South Wales. This was the largest lead ever in the 1st half of a State Of Origin match.
During half-time, a Little Origin match was held.
Queensland returned to form in the 2nd half but couldn’t match New South Wales’s 1st half performance. A grapple on Queensland captain, Daly Cherry-Evans, by Stephen Crichton, 9 minutes into the 2nd half saw tensions boil over with the referee giving both teams a warning of a potential sin bin, which was disregarded less than 30 seconds later (in game time), resulting in a 10-minute sin bin of 1 player for both teams. In this case, Liam Martin (NSW), the instigator, who pushed Jaydn Su’A’s head & Patrick Carrigan (QLD), the 5th Queenslander to respond to Martin but the one most in sight of the referee & the only one who had a tight grip on Martin in response.
In the 53rd minute, Queensland’s Jeremiah Nanai managed to push through the NSW defence to score Queensland’s opening try. In the 2nd half, Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow surprisingly returned to the field and 5 minutes after Nanai’s try, made his return count, hammering through the NSW defence to catch a 3rd tackle kick to dive near the goalposts to decrease Queensland’s deficit to a still distant 22 points.
To remind Queensland who is still winning, New South Welshmen, Dylan Edwards, on debut, shimmied for 10 metres in the 61st minute through the Queensland defence to score what was NSW’s final try for the night. An massive hole in NSW’s wing defence appeared 6 minutes later allowing Murray Taulagi to score a final consolation try for Queensland after NSW’s record-breaking 1st half. The remaining 12 minutes were uneventful, given NSW were going to be clear winners, though both sides never gave up in attempting to add tries to their scoresheet.
The final score was New South Wales 38-18 Queensland.
All successful conversions were kicked by Valentine Holmes for Queensland & Zac Lomax for New South Wales.
At the end of the match, Channel 9 celebrated the series being levelled by showing a drone shot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge & Opera House with computer-generated blue fireworks exploding around the shot & a blue-tinted box appearing saying ‘NSW Levels The Series’ in blue.
Mitchell Moses was player of the match.
After the match, Queensland coach, Billy Slater, confirmed Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow had suffered an AC shoulder joint injury.
I think the whole dressing room in there is pretty disappointed, so it was a tough old first half, um. (loudly separates lips) It just felt like we were running uphill & we couldn’t stop the, the momentum of the game & um, you know, part of that is on us so you know, we’ll look at our game & work out what we need to adjust & what we need to go after & I think I do know is there’s another game in 3 weeks’ time.
I thought the first 8-9 minutes, it was a, (sharply inhales) a bit of a tussle & then New South Wales got a, (sharply inhales) a snowball of possession & ummm, (loudly separates lips), you know, we held them out for a few sets & and they broke & um, got a try & yeah, just sort of went downhill from there.
It’s a tough game to play. It’s a lot tougher when you’re tired so, um, like I said, it snowballed against the team & we just couldn’t stop it.
Yeah, I thought the 2nd half was quite good, um. (notably separates lips audibly) I’m not sure what the 2nd half score was but, um, I thought our actions, the way we started the 2nd half, we (sharply inhales) went after our footy a little bit more, um. We were a little bit more patient, uh. We weren’t looking for (sharply inhales) any shortcuts to, to draw back the scoreline, um, you know, so, yeah, it’s a positive in the 2nd half but um, yeah, yeah, there was too many things in that 1st half on our behalf that, you know, we didn’t do as well as we would have liked &, uhm, we all know that.
I think it was nearly 70-30 possession in that 1st half & you know, the scoreline, the scoreline reflected that so, um, any individuals’ its’ going to be hard for them so that, that’s where we are with that.
Queensland coach, Billy Slater
Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, making sure that I, um, credit the guys that have been in, you know, in the 1st campaign like you, you don’t know what could, could happen in that game obviously, um, but you know, Mitch has come in and he did what I believe he is capable of doing and I think what we all thought he was capable of doing. You know, he kicked well & I thought he’d jumped into the campaign straight up when he 1st walked in, uh. He was strong with the way he, he wanted to, uh, play the game but everyone just jumped on board and did their jobs. Um, I think all of them, & I mean, I mean not just Mitch but Dylan Edwards out the back, I thought he was excellent. He has just, just shown that he’s an Origin player and I said that from day 1 when I first picked him.
You know, Rome. He did his job but I thought, I thought someone like Payne Haas & Jake, they laid the platform so, you know, we’ll. They all just jumped in together & made sure that they played their part for the team which is something there they have spoken about as a group, you know & what they want to be able to achieve so we got to take that forward now.
New South Wales coach, Micheal Maguire
It is now all on the line in Game 3, which will be held at Brisbane’s Lang Park on Wednesday, July 17 at 8:05pm AEST & the deciding finale of an equalising 3-game Women’s State Of Origin series is on tomorrow (Thursday 27th June) at 7:45pm at North Queensland Stadium in Townsville.
Sydney Spectaculars 