Queensland won the 2023 State of Origin series with a dominant 32-6 victory over New South Wales in game two in Brisbane.<\/p>\n
Queensland won the opener 26-18 in Adelaide.<\/p>\n
Valentine Holmes and Murray Taulagi tries built a healthy 10-0 half-time advantage for Queensland despite them ceding plenty of possession.<\/p>\n
Holmes’ second came after the break and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow asserted the Maroons’ dominance with a fourth try.<\/p>\n
Damien Cook scored for the Blues before Xavier Coates and Jeremiah Nanai tries ensured a blow-out scoreline.<\/p>\n
The game spilled over into chaos at the end as Josh Addo-Carr was sin-binned for a punch with 20 seconds remaining, while Jarome Luai and Reece Walsh were sent off for exchanging headbutts.<\/p>\n
Legendary former Australia international Billy Slater has taken his success as a Maroons player into coaching, winning back-to-back series with his home state for the first time since 2017 and moulding a collective of young, hungry players into a formidable outfit in the process.<\/p>\n
His selection of Broncos full-back Walsh for the custodian role, with Samoa’s Dolphins full-back Tabuai-Fidow in the centre, paid off brilliantly with both heavily involved in defence and attack.<\/p>\n
The experienced halves duo of Daly Cherry-Evans and Cameron Munster provided the control and creativity to unpick the Blues, despite giving away plenty of ball.<\/p>\n
Holmes’ first was from a Cherry-Evans dink which Addo-Carr could not field while Munster’s chip caused chaos for Nanai to settle it.<\/p>\n
The Blues’ left-edge defence was targeted all night, with points also coming courtesy of razor-sharp hands for Holmes’ second and Taulagi’s score.<\/p>\n
Tabuai-Fidow beat Blues prop Payne Haas to a wicked bounce for his score, as the Maroons took their chances.<\/p>\n
Brad Fittler’s future as New South Wales head coach could be in question after this loss, despite winning three of the past six series.<\/p>\n
His side did not struggle for possession but a combination of stubborn defence and a lack of invention around the Queensland goal-line cost them.<\/p>\n
Mitchell Moses was picked at half-back with Nathan Cleary out, and he showed some nice touches but the early loss of Tom Trbojevic at centre through a pectoral injury proved key.<\/p>\n
Try-scorer Cook did his best in an unfamiliar position, but the absence of a key strike player showed at times with some clunky attack on that edge.<\/p>\n
The onus now for the wounded Blues is to avoid a clean sweep on home turf when game three goes to Sydney on Wednesday, 12 July.<\/p>\n
Queensland: Walsh; Coates, Holmes, Tabuai-Fidow, Taulagi; Munster, Cherry-Evans; Flegler, Hunt, Fa’asuamaleaui, Fifita, Cotter, Carrigan<\/p>\n
Interchanges: Grant, Flegler, Nanai, Fotuaika<\/p>\n
New South Wales: Tedesco; To’o, Crichton, Trbojevic, Addo-Carr; Luai, Moses; Paulo, Robson, Haas, Frizell, Young, Yeo<\/p>\n
Interchanges: Utoikamanu, Murray, Martin, Cook<\/p>\n
SOURCE RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Queensland won the 2023 State of Origin series with a dominant 32-6 victory over New South Wales in game two in Brisbane. Queensland won the opener 26-18 in Adelaide. Valentine Holmes and Murray Taulagi tries built a healthy 10-0 half-time advantage for Queensland despite them ceding plenty of possession. Holmes’ second came after the break […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5761,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5759\/revisions\/5761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}