Player ratings for the Queensland Maroons team in their State of Origin I clash with the NSW Blues at Queensland Country Bank Stadium.
5. Valentine Holmes: Couldn t conjure many moments of brilliance on his home deck but tried hard to lift the team in his second Origin match as a fullback.
5/10
2. Xavier Coates: Caught out several times in defence as he rushed infield with the opposing left edge running riot. A few solid carries in the second half but spilled a bomb that led to Latrell Mitchell crossing for the Blues.
3.5
3. Kurt Capewell: Burned on the outside by Tom Trbojevic for NSW s first try but pulled one back later in the first half with a slick move to beat his direct opponent. Made a handling error that led to the Blues scoring and fell for a Nathan Cleary dummy to cause another.
For two months we ve watched Tom Trbojevic transform Manly from cellar dwellers into premiership contenders but only now did we realise how much NSW missed him in last year s State of Origin series.
Trbojevic s freakish efforts in Wednesday night s record-breaking 50-6 win started from the opening set of the match when he took two runs to get the Blues on the front foot.
Advantage Turbo early, and from there, it was the Trbojevic show.
Making a welcome return to the Origin arena after missing last year s series through injury, Trbojevic s efforts left many in awe of his man-of-the-match performance at Queensland Country Bank Stadium.
Queensland missed 52 tackles. They conceded nine line breaks and produced 13 errors. It was deplorable. We got beaten to the punch early in that game. They really dominated around the ruck area which [meant] defensively, we couldn t get any control, Green said.
“And then once we felt uncomfortable in that position, we tried to sort of trick our way out which you can t do in Origin, so it was very disappointing.
“Where we needed to just tighten up and fight a bit harder, we looked for a bit of an easy way out to try and get ourselves back in the game and at Origin level, there s no easy way.