The NSW Blues women played near perfect second half rugby league for the second match in a row, this time in periods of heavy rain, to win game two of State of Origin and take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series.
Queensland opened the scoring inside the first six minutes after making the most of some repeated attacking sets, but it wasn’t without controversy. Maroons hooker Lauren Brown’s grubber kick found the in-goal, and NSW lock forward Olivia Kernick went to pick up the ball and in doing so appeared to have grounded the ball in order to re-start play. Both sides then set up ready for NSW to take a line dropout. However the video bunker claimed that Kernick wasn’t trying to ground the ball despite appearing to accidentally do so, and awarded a try to Queensland’s Tamika Upton. The Maroons seemed pleasantly surprised, while Kernick appeared to say “are you kidding me?” in disbelief to referee Belinda Sharpe.
From then on the Blues were able to regroup and take some momentum. Despite the Queensland defenders putting far more pressure on Jesse Southwell’s kicking game than in game one, the young halfback used the wet conditions to her advantage. One of Southwell’s short kicks, which on any other night may have rolled dead, stopped dead in its tracks and forced a dropout. Moments later Blues forward Simaima Taufa, who missed last year’s series through injury, ran a beautiful angle off a Kernick pass and charged 15 metres to score, levelling the match 6-6.
Southwell provided a huge play at the other end of the field midway through the first half as Queensland looked to apply pressure. A well weighted kick into the in-goal was collected cleanly by Southwell when others had struggled to do so on previous attempts. She then burrowed her way through several Maroons defenders to make it back into the field and play and eventually get NSW back on the attack. Minutes later, the Blues took the lead when Kernick saw a small gap and burst through tackles on a powerful and evasive 20 metre run to score under the posts. Southwell’s conversion made the score 10-6.
NSW were dominating the contest, however their error rate in the wet conditions, particularly in attacking positions, prevented them from extending their lead.
With just over a minute left in the opening half, Queensland had a golden opportunity to draw level as they attacked the NSW try line. Bench forward Chelsea Lenarduzzi charged the ball to within a few metres of the line, and as she rose to play the ball too quickly, was not fully balanced, and fell to ground, with referee Sharpe calling it a knock on. Blues forward Kennedy Cherrington gave Lenarduzzi some choice words on what happened, triggering some push and shove and several players running in. No action was taken, but NSW came away with possession and took the 12-6 lead into the break.
Down in the series and trailing on the scoreboard, the Queensland team would have been looking to start the second half well, but they did the opposite. A poorly organised attacking set saw co-captain Ali Brigginshaw in a less than ideal position to kick the ball, and her opposing captain Izzy Kelly was able to smother the kick and put NSW on the attack. Kelly then contributed to a backline move, attracting two defenders before passing to her Roosters premiership teammate Jayme Fressard who was able to plant the ball in the corner for her third Origin try in two games.
Now holding a 16-6 lead, the Blues continued to march upfield with each possession, and Southwell’s mixture of short kicks (she forced five line dropouts during the match) and some floating bombs kept the Queensland back three players nervous.
12 minutes into the second half came the try of the match when NSW, who had seen much of their success down the left wing through the series, shifted the ball to the right. A couple of wide passes saw five eighth Tiana Penitani Gray put on a subtle piece of footwork to step inside a defender before throwing a beautifully weighted pass to the advantage of winger Jaime Chapman. The superstar streamed down the right flank and produced some deceptive footwork of her own to step inside fullback Tamika Upton and slide over the line for another Blues try. It came at a cost for Queensland, with Upton appearing to suffer a leg injury in the process of missing the tackle on Chapman. Upton was visibly limping and bravely continued to play for several minutes, before leaving the field with 20 minutes remaining. Post-match, Maroons coach Tahnee Norris said Upton would need to undergo scans to determine the severity of the injury.
The Blues executed a perfect second half, with coach John Strange delighted that his side completed 21/21 sets with the ball, having made eight handling errors in the first stanza. His Roosters Dally M medalist Olivia Kernick capped off a brilliant individual performance by crashing over for her second try in the final ten minutes to put an exclamation mark on a dominant NSW win.
Kernick ran for nearly 250 metres, making 99 metres after contact, while making 35 tackles in defence. She wasn’t alone, with Kezie Apps and Simaima Taufa all running over 120 metres. In contrast, the best yardage by a Queensland forward was Jess Elliston’s 86 metres. According to Queensland co-captain Ali Brigginshaw, that’s where the game was won and lost:
“They’ve got some extremely good forwards and I just felt like they got a roll on and they just kept rolling down the field…. and Jesse just placed those kicks perfectly around the field.”
Looking down the barrel at a first ever three game whitewash, coach Norris believes that, having conceded 58 points across the two games, defence is where the players need to focus if they’re to avoid a 3-0 whitewash:
“You can’t win an Origin game with fifty missed tackles. We’re playing for pride. This Maroons jersey means so much to us - the girls have got to have a real good look at it, and fix our defence up.”
Meanwhile for the winners, captain Izzy Kelly was full of praise for coach John Strange, who has used the six week training block before the series began, to produce two dominant performances:
“He’s really instilled this confidence within every single player that they can do pretty incredible things.”
Strange talked about his pride in the players, who were confronted with less than ideal pitch and weather conditions but kept to their game plan:
“It wasn’t just about looking at the conditions and just do one-out hit ups for a kick and hope for the best. It was, ‘no, we’re going to still play footy’, and that’s why I’m so proud of the girls, they did that.”
It seems bizarre to think that only six months ago, Dally M medalist Olivia Kernick was unable to make the Australian squad for the Pacific Champs. Having won the NRLW comp last year alongside her, HER WAY asked Kelly what makes the star forward such a special player:
“She really understands footy. She’s really smart, she loves to learn, and she’s well respected within our group. I think when Liv talks everyone really listens and I think she’s a really great leader within our Blues. I had a feeling tonight she was really going to shine, and i thought she led our forward pack really well. I was really proud of her tonight.”
Kernick herself focussed on her team’s achievement, saying,
“It’s our first three game series win, and to wrap it up in game two, it’s actually unreal. I think it just makes me really proud of the girls because these are our first couple of games for the year and the quality is so good.”
With pride a massive motivator for Queensland in game three, HER WAY asked Olivia what will be the key to not being complacent in the decider:
“We obviously want to celebrate tonight, but after tonight we’re preparing for next game. We go into camp on Thursday.”
The teams will meet again in two weeks for that decider in Newcastle. Both sides had stars leave the field with injury, including Queensland’s Upton with a leg injury, while Blues centre Jess Sergis came from the field experiencing disorientation after a crusher tackle and didn’t return to the field. Jaime Chapman also left the field late in the game with a right ankle issue but was keen and able to come back on to finish the game if needed.