The best team lost Origin I. There won’t be another miracle

May 30, 2026 — 5:00am

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Origin I is done, with a miracle win to the Blues. So, now on to Origin II, and may the best team win?

No! For in the words of English rugby captain Bill Beaumont when the same sentiment was put to him on the eve of taking on the mighty Welsh team in Cardiff: “I certainly hope not!”

I mean it. Yes, it was a miracle win. Yes, it was a staggering stroke of luck that Ponga was sent from the field with 23 minutes to go. Yes, Tedesco’s catch in the final minute to score the winning try was stupendous, and against all odds.

But isn’t that all the point?

The best team on the night was not NSW. Our blokes were outclassed for most of that match. Queensland were faster, stronger, better, and far and away more skilled. That win really was a miracle. But that is why you have a series to decide the winner and not just a single match. The chances of two miracle wins out of three are pretty slim, I’d reckon.

Queensland will win this series. You heard it here first.

And if that doesn’t get the Blues over the line, nothing will.

The “Enhanced Games”? Please. Who gives a flying ruck?

Sport is a test of skill and will. When it comes to a contest between juice monkeys with flecks of urine in their drugs, who the hell cares?

Particularly when their times have, by and large, failed to make a dent on those of the best clean athletes. The whole thing is just one big infomercial to sell pharmaceuticals, by using sport as bait, and that’s it.

“That bloke,” the old gag goes, “likes both kinds of music: country and western.”

And good luck to them. I, for one, still love Slim Dusty’s stuff. But while Slim’s songs were indeed country music, they were done with his broad Australian accent. The problem in the modern day is that a lot of Australian country music singers sound like they are from southern Alabama. Having grown up consuming and singing everything on the American charts, I guess that is inevitable.

The problem is when you invite one of them to sing the Australian national anthem before State of Origin I, the result is ... let’s face it, a disaster. Now the singer, Robbie Mortimer is – I gather – highly accomplished and hugely successful in his field. I repeat: good luck to him! But when the starting point is an anthem that is a dreadful dirge in the first place, and it is sung in pure Alabaman, it was a dog’s breakfast. And I am not alone in this view. When I put it on X, I was overwhelmed with responses.

“I thought it was joke. The NRL’s attempt at humour? Insulting.”

“A terrible song. I’m gurted. Shades of putting lipstick on a pig.”

“It was a shocker, it sounded like some Yank yokel on helium.”

“It was the NRL’s Meatloaf........

© The Sydney Morning Herald