There's no such thing as an Origin dead rubber - or so the saying goes.
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The fact there's been just seven sweeps in 40 years would seem to support that assertion, but it could just as easily suggest the opposite. It points to how difficult, and how rare, it is for a team with the shield already in the bag to muster enough desire to make it three in a row. Even the famous all-conquering eight-in-a-row Maroons notched the one sweep as a bucket list item.
It was evidenced by the Blues, featuring Gerringong's Tariq Sims and Bega's Dale Finucane, dropping State of Origin three 20-18 to Queensland on Wednesday night, only finding a semblance of desperation with 11 minutes to play. It hardly renders the 76-6 tally in the previous two games moot, just the game they bothered to play after it.
For a team as dominant as Freddie's Blues were over the opening two games to drop game three by two was not so much a restoration of the natural order, as a suppression of it.
As much as people claimed it, the Blues going up two-zip 70 points to the good didn't point to the frailty of Origin as a concept - Queensland have now lost a staggering one series in a row - but non-deciding game threes might be on the chopping block if they weren't so damn lucrative.
It wasn't a dud game in the same way the Sydney to Hobart isn't a dud race despite being foregone conclusion. Queensland mustered something where an already victorious NSW couldn't.
Referee Gerard Sutton knew it was a dead rubber, which is why he refereed it like a club game, with 15 set restarts in the opening half having put the whistle and the arm away over the opening two games - and winning praise for it.
Even Latrell Mitchell's last-minute attempt at a game-levelling penalty goal from halfway had a 'free-hit' look about it, ultimately falling agonisingly short.
In the end, Blues skipper James Tedesco lifting the shield on the back of a defeat was like the speeches at a 21st birthday party, a boring formality that only briefly halts the party.
The best indication of the feeling afterwards was how pissed off both coaches were in the presser.
"We had our chances at the death but we most probably weren't playing good enough to take those chances," Brad Fittler said.
"That's why [sweeps] are hard. They had a lot of energy Queensland, that was their best game of the series, without a doubt.
"There's been two [sweeps] in 25 years now so they don't come easy. It was a great effort but it's hard to be delighted. It is the nature of the beast and I'd never want to change the way it is.
"Hopefully that's what spurs them on if we get another opportunity at that. [We] were really good this year, but it's hard to be delighted tonight.
"I think a few things went their way and they took advantage of it. There were a few decisions I thought were pretty dodgy and we weren't happy with but, at the end of the day, there were big periods where the game was in play and they were the better side."
It's still the Maroons that will have the questions to answer in the aftermath. Queensland's preparation, certainly for games two and three of the series, made the country's vaccine roll-out look like a well-oiled machine.
Paul Green's press-conference backpedal in the immediate fallout to Jai Arrow's banishment from camp in the lead-up was so striking Roosters young-gun Sam Walker felt compelled to do an impression of it in dying moments of his side's win over the Bulldogs last weekend.
Walker may next wear Maroons colours before Green despite Wednesday's win that saved face but perhaps not his job.
"That's for you guys to decide," Was Green's response when asked how much face had been saved post-game.
He was equally coy when asked what he'd learned over the series.
"Plenty."
Like what?
"It's better when you win."
Reporters ultimately teased out a response.
"Now's not the time to talk about that," he said.
"I'm just going to enjoy the win. I've said through the week, and I'll stand by it, I like what we've started. The series didn't pan out how we'd all hoped but, I said through through the week, the future for Queensland's bright.
"We've just got to scrap away until some of those guys get a bit of experience under their belt. Our culture was questioned and you don't win Origin games like that if you don't have character and you don't stick together.
"Tonight's not about me, tonight was a great win for Queensland. We've been under unbelievable pressure and we left ourselves open to that the way the first two games panned out. It is what it is, but we showed some character to get the result tonight."
The Queenslanders had their outstanding performers, Kayln Ponga among them, though he didn't do enough to suggest he'd be a 70-point difference-maker in the opening two games.
Dragons skipper Ben Hunt also showed that, as a halfback, he makes a pretty darn good hooker, grabbing two tries and and saving a couple at the other end, the main question being how selectors left him out of game one.
The Maroons opened the scoring through a fourth-minute penalty goal to Valentine a Holmes, breaking a 130-minute points drought and claiming the lead for the first time in the series.
Cam Murray produced a one-on-one strip in the next set and swung momentum straight back to the Blues, with Mitchell brushing past some flimsy defence for the opening four-pointer four minutes later.
It seemed that little bit too easy, with Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow hitting back for the Maroons via an off-load from Tino Fa'asuamaleaui, the big man the beneficiary of a neat pass from Cameron Munster to create the space for the 17th minute four-pointer.
It's questionable whether the Zen Freddie we see these days is still capable of delivering a spray, but he must've gone close to it at halftime given what his side produced following the resumption.
Jack Wighton crossed from a neat shift seven minutes into the second stanza and looked to have put the train back in motion before Hunt forced an error with a strong shot on Mitchell on his own line and barged across the Blues stripe at the other end to put his side back in front with 23 minutes to play.
He had his second seven minutes later when he found a way to pop up on the left edge after Ponga broke the Blues open on the right. It gave Queensland an eight-point lead with 17 minutes left.
It wasn't over, with Api Koroisau grabbing his first Origin try after Mitch Moses - largely unsighted to that point - threaded a neat grubber into the Maroons in-goal to make a game of it with 11 minutes on the clock.
The Blues had a mountain of possession but couldn't find the go-ahead try, with Mitchell's accurate but ultimately short penalty goal attempt from halfway inside the final minute as close as the Blues got to re-taking the lead.
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