Queensland weave some late magic to hold off the Blues

Picture courtesy of News.com.au

What a game, what a game. I was lucky enough to find an online stream for the match and I'm so happy that I was able to see it. For the first time in a while, it was a competitive, gritty war between the old foes. QLD obviously takes the lead 1-0 in the series and some changes need to made for NSW if they are to have a shot at winning Game 2. With Inglis and Hodges potentially returning, NSW will be up against it to seal a victory in Sydney.

Even though last night was a victory, there were a few worrying signs. Firstly, our attack was only really successful when we kicked in behind the line. The winning try was caused by effective shifting of the ball and a fantastic line by Slater but to be honest, that was the only play that worked when we ran at the line and it took 73 minutes of fatigue in the Blues for it to happen. Part of this can be attributed to missing two of the best centres in the game but I think it can put down to other two things - admirable defence from the Blues and also a lack of creativity from Tonga and Neilsen. Tonga was injured so he's excused and Neilsen on debut performed well in defence but in attack he simply did not work his opposition well enough and create space for his winger.

The other was the much-maligned QLD right side defence. Neilsen and Boyd actually did quite well I thought but the Jennings try was caused by Lockyer being out of position. While that was his only mistake for the game, it was still unnecessary and caused a few headaches for Maroon supporters

The only other question mark is relating to our attack again - in the second half we had numerous consecutive sets of six and couldn't convert that into any points. One of the hallmarks of this Queensland reign was the ability to seal the deal when we had possession - last night we couldn't do that. Having 58% of possession should equate to more points than what it did.

On to the good elements of last night - Matt Scott is a monster, plain and simple. 15 runs, 24 tackles, 2 offloads and 6 tackle breaks pretty much sum it all up. The reason QLD won can be attributed to the forward pack - King, Mannah, Merrin and Young just were not up to it at all. Snowden had an off night and even though Ennis made a few highlight reel blunders, he was actually one of the few NSW forwards who could hold their head high. QLD's forward pack was led magnificently by Petero and Scott - with workmanlike efforts from Ash Harrison, Nate Myles and Ben Hannant that set the platform for the backs to do their thing.

The other big plus was Darius Boyd - for mine, he had an absolute blinder. His defence was fantastic, you only need to watch the two driving tackles he put on Gaz for evidence of that. He was also great under the high ball and while I don't normally advocate wingers rushing off their post to defend, he did it with style last night and made sure he left no room for the Blues to capitalise.

I could go on forever about QLD last night but I think you get the picture - while the Blues fought admirably, you just couldn't stop QLD last night. Go Maroons!