Queensland strike Hammer blow in State of Origin opener

By George Clarke in Adelaide

NSW will have to take the hard road to reclaim the State of Origin shield after Queensland pipped the Blues to a 26-18 win in the series opener.

Try-scoring doubles from Selwyn Cobbo and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow helped Billy Slater’s men to victory in front of a crowd of 48,613 at Adelaide Oval, with maverick five-eighth Cameron Munster wrapping up the result with five minutes to go.

The Maroons had to overcome plenty of adversity with Tom Gilbert (shoulder) and Cobbo (leg) unable to finish the game, while Queensland saw David Fifita, Murray Taulagi (both head injury assessment) and Tom Flegler (sin bin) spend time out of the game.

But the grit and fight on Wednesday – personified by man-of-the-match Reuben Cotter – helped them take a 1-0 lead in the series with Game II at their Suncorp fortress on June 21.

The Blues, who have won just one of their last six outings in Brisbane, lost Tom Trbojevic late in the second half (head injury assessment).

Brad Fittler’s three NSW debutants all struggled to fire but they had the lead until the last 10 minutes when Tabuai-Fidow and Munster hit back to seal victory.

Dolphins speedster Tabuai-Fidow, who was playing out of position at centre and selected ahead of Maroons stalwart Dane Gagai, dived on a Munster grubber to open the scoring after eight minutes.

Cobbo followed him over soon after and the Blues were on the back foot.

The Maroons went hunting for a third try inside the opening 30 minutes only for referee Ashley Klein to penalise them for having a 14th man on field when prop Lindsay Collins came on to replace Gilbert.

The penalty gave the Blues a shot at the Maroons’ line and while Tyson Frizell crashed over, the bunker adjudicated the hard-running Newcastle back-rower had failed to ground the ball.

With Gilbert off and his fellow edge forward Fifita getting assessed, the Blues struck back through Liam Martin.

Nathan Cleary converted Martin’s try to cut Queensland’s lead to 10-6 at half-time.

Soon into the second half the Blues found themselves in the lead when Holmes threw a rash offload that NSW hooker Api Koroisau was able to scoop up and race in to score.

Cleary converted to give the Blues a two-point lead but it didn’t last long with debutant Maroons fullback Reece Walsh sending Cobbo over in the 56th minute.

Queensland were quickly running out of troops and when Stephen Crichton crashed over with less than a quarter of an hour left the Blues looked to be heading for victory.

But Tabuai-Fidow jinked his way down field in the dying stages, rounding NSW skipper James Tedesco to put Queensland ahead, before Munster made sure of a Maroons win when he crashed over from close range.