Maroons coach Billy Slater believes Queensland’s 22-12 win over NSW to regain Origin Shield was as good a performance as he has ever seen from his state.
Slater played 31 Origins for Queensland in a period of unprecedented dominance as a player, but he believes his team’s victory to get his first series as a coach was the performance that made him feel most proud.
“It was a unique game, no, especially the beginning,” Slater said.
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“We lost two and Cam Murray also fell, so I don’t know if I’ve seen a game like this start before.
“It just demonstrated the commitment that both parties were willing to put into play.
“It was a brave effort. We only used one other exchange than the two forced in that first half.
“We knew it would get us some petrol out of our tank, but it’s a Queensland win as good as I’ve ever seen.
“A tough, tough performance. I have some pretty proud guys in there and they haven’t won that.”
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Maroons skipper Daly Cherry-Evans revealed the players ’mindset of not depending on the crowd, but of producing moments that would inspire them to cheer on the players.
“We talked about where we were playing and who was going to be here and what they wanted to see,” Cherry-Evans said.
“We did not want to trust them. We wanted to give them something to cheer on and I had the feeling we continued for 80 minutes to give them something to cheer on and that came back to us every time we felt those waves of support make you grow another leg and tonight it worked really good. ”
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In a frantic match that saw multiple HIAs fail and a double sin-binning, Cherry-Evans couldn’t resist a blatant dig for the Blues, believing their team won because they kept calm and played football again.
“Probably the main message was that we felt the team that stayed calmer was going to win,” Cherry-Evans said.
“The team that played football again was going to win because there were a lot of different things that changed the game.
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“These things can really affect the game of footy and it’s who comes out on the other side playing the smartest game and we did. We played a style that wore them down in the end.”
Cherry-Evans revealed the mindset of players entering the game to try to emulate the Queensland heroes of the past.
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“There’s something when you walk into camp and you have a responsibility,” Cherry-Evans said.
“And it’s not a discouraging responsibility. It’s a responsibility that makes you excited and grateful where you are.
“There’s a lot of history that’s happened to us and we’ve unpacked a lot of it this week and we just knew that from all those moments in Queensland we had to produce one.”