‘If at any stage you think they’re better than them, they’ll beat you’

This will be a different Queensland, and if history is any guide they rarely lose Origin deciders in Brisbane.

So what are the biggest challenges facing the Blues, trying to win an Origin decider in Brisbane for the first time since 2005?

Embracing history

From the moment the Blues breezed off the park on Wednesday night, they were being told of the weight of history against them. And as good as Nathan Cleary was in game two, he’s no Andrew Johns circa 2005.

While Fittler and his adviser Greg Alexander had yet to speak to the current squad about the trailblazers before them, they will have the chance to in coming days – if they want.

“Naturally, it’s a challenge,” Alexander says. “You’re trying to attempt something that has rarely been done. It’s never easy to win away from home, particularly in a decider. But that’s what it is.”

The last coach to lead NSW to a win in a series decider north of the border was Ricky Stuart, who had carefully crafted the message to his players in advance of the series knowing they might need to win at The Cauldron in game three.

“As much as we want to play in front of our fans, he said, ‘Don’t be confused, Suncorp Stadium is the home of the State of Origin and you want to play there’,” says Roosters assistant coach Matt King, who was NSW’s three-try hero in the 2005 finale.

“He rammed home the fact we were playing two games away from home. By the time we got to the decider, he had already framed that and we were excited to crash the party for want of a better term. Ricky’s words were true, it wasn’t just a way of providing motivation.”

Calming the crowd

Palaszczuk’s government announced on Friday it would relax the rules around mass gatherings, meaning Suncorp Stadium can be at 100 per cent capacity for the decider. The change will come into effect, ahem, on Tuesday.

While most of the NSW squad are now familiar with the lubricated locals walking down Caxton Street and into Suncorp, it will be an entirely different beast in a decider.

“Every training session we had in the 10 days leading up to [the decider in 2005] always started with protecting our goal line,” King says.

“The first 15 minutes of the actual game we were just camped on our tryline and we just kept turning them away. I had Mark Gasnier inside of me and after that first 15 minutes he said, ‘I couldn’t hear a thing you were saying’. And I was screaming at him.”

So apart from the obvious scoreboard dominance, how do the Blues take the crowd out of the game? And if Queensland are behind, will they go spoiling for another scuffle, like the one between Payne Haas and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, to bait the crowd into going up a notch or two?

NSW great and former coach Laurie Daley wants NSW’s senior players, who have suddenly had more responsibility thrust upon them in the absence of Boyd Cordner, to show their mettle when momentum is against them.

“Queensland will feed off that different environment,” Daley says. “The place will be roaring. There will be a lot more aggression in everything they do.

“What are our team going to do when we’re under pressure? Who are our leaders? Who’s going to get us out of certain situations? We haven’t been tested in that regard.”

The Wayne factor

He was only appointed coach a few weeks before the series started, has sat at the back of the bus to listen to the boys’ stories, blamed the media for starting the game two biff and has players who only met recently feeling “seven foot tall” under his coaching.

There’s always method to Bennett’s madness, and a week like this is what he relishes.

Asked about his jovial nature straight after game two, Daley says: “When you get beat like that, I don’t think you’d be laughing too often.

“[But] he has to be able to convince the players they’re good enough and let go of what happened in game two. They can’t be despondent about it – they’ve got to let it go – but knowing if they’re in that situation again, how they get out of it and what they need to do better. Or it might be, we know it’s going to happen, but how do we get ourselves out of it and get back into the contest?”

He just knows. He’s in the job for a reason and he knows how to get his sides up

Cody Walker

Part of the problem for Bennett is stifling the impact of two NSW players he coaches at NRL level, South Sydney’s Damien Cook and Cody Walker.

Asked of the Bennett factor, Walker says: “He just knows. He’s in the job for a reason and he knows how to get his sides up.”

Says King: “It doesn’t matter who the Queenslanders put out there, if at any stage you think you’re better than them they will beat you.”

Illegal tactics

Daley knows better than most the perils of playing at Suncorp Stadium, which has more than 50,000 people baiting match officials for little favours.

The Blues have been soundly beaten in penalty counts from Origin matches in Brisbane in the last 11 years. The aggregate over that period is 92-55.

Fittler tells his players to prepare for any scenario, and his predecessor warned the Maroons will be pushing the boundaries all night.

“The way NSW started in their defence [in game two], that’s what will Queensland start like,” Daley says. “If they’ve got to jump early and give away penalties they will do that.

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“They will be way more aggressive in defence. They will be trying to work out ways to nullify the kicking game. They will be talking about how to nullify [Nathan] Cleary. They will be talking about how to get momentum when NSW put us into a corner.

“All those things they were beaten in Sydney they will be working hard on.”

Fittler and Alexander put a huge emphasis on NSW and Cleary improving their kicking game, kicking early for Josh Addo-Carr to leave Origin rookie Phillip Sami in two minds, staying away from the sideline before last-tackle plays, running the ball on the last to hand it over in Queensland’s corner.

Fittler was even seen clapping when NSW surrendered possession a couple of metres out from the Maroons’ line without kicking.

“It was great to see the improvement in some areas we worked on,” Alexander says. “In game three we just have to repeat what we did in game two.”