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In drizzling rain, fatigued bodies, all flailing and falling – except one. Evergreen James Tedesco rose to bump then clutch then plant the ball, securing New South Wales a famous State of Origin victory.
This was a man said to be too old for rugby league’s grand contest. Who lost his job last year, an axe appearing to sever the connection between the Blues and one of their modern heroes. A man who until this moment had watched the evening unfold from the periphery.
The night’s narrative had seemed to be a new generation assuming the limelight: Sam Walker, Ethan Strange and Casey McLean. If not them, then it would be Nathan Cleary, asserting his rule over rugby league once again. Tedesco’s era had surely passed.
However, the 33-year-old with roadrunner legs and disregard for his head still had more to give. The Roosters’ No 1 barrelled after a Cleary bomb, 79 minutes into his 24th Origin appearance. Closing fast towards impact, a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Or was it simply the end?
At the younger, more athletic Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, the fading veteran arrived. It looked a test of technique and will and whatever has driven Tedesco in the thousand chases that had come before. The pair leapt as one, the ball disappearing for a moment between them, a micro contest within a macro one.
The largely blue, near-80,000 present had endured the full spectrum of experience already. They were initially silenced by the Maroons’ ruthless execution, led by Walker’s barely believable introduction to State of Origin. The 23-year-old’s delectable grubber was devoured by his Roosters’ teammate Rob Toia in the ninth minute, then Walker put Tom Flegler through shortly after to double the Maroons’ lead.
The effervescent playmaker was grinning throughout, the tiny king making a mockery of his Roosters teammate Tedesco and the others in Blue. A third try came as Tedesco scrambled towards Walker’s side of the ruck, allowing Cam Munster on the other to deliver his own grubber to Tabuai-Fidow. Such was Walker’s level of comfort, he tossed a casual cutout seconds before the half-time siren that almost cost his side points when it went to ground. Yet the debutant popped up on the big screen, smile still whole.
Flegler’s try was conjured by hooker Harry Grant, who shrugged off two tacklers and flung a flick spiral pass out the back for Walker. The Maroons’ spine seemed electrified in this first half, with Cam Munster and Kalyn Ponga buzzing along the same wavelength. For a moment, their link play had fans forgetting that Reece Walsh – a surprise omission from the squad – even existed.
Yet at half-time, a promotion for this year’s Rugby League World Cup popped up on the big screen, and there was Walsh anyway. Seventeen minutes later, the man preferred to him found himself in that three-storey high frame, in the aftermath of the match’s most contentious moment.
Ponga’s night – and that of Queensland – turned in an instant when the fullback met the head of Tolu Koula in an awkward covering tackle, leading with his shoulder. The sickening impact brought both sets of players together, a flashpoint with poor Koula lying prone at the bottom. At that stage the score was 20-6, the crowd had been pondering whether to go home early to beat the rain, and the Maroons were coasting.
The melee dispersed. Referee Ashley Klein called Ponga over. With a finger in a damp night sky, Klein sent him to the sheds. The Maroons’ No 1 – pointing to the blood pouring from his ear – argued it was head-to-head contact, to no avail. It was just the seventh send off in Origin history. The crowd was alive. So too, was the contest. Walsh, one can only imagine, watched with interest.
The surging Blues laid siege the Maroons’ line, but their comeback was let down by execution. One four-on-one overlap was wasted when Tedesco sent a pass towards the ankles of Haumole Olakau’atu, who fumbled with the line in touching distance. But when Strange broke through for his first Origin try, head-butting the ball in celebration, and then Cleary brought the Blues within one score, the contest hung in the balance.
It was ended when Tedesco came down from his duel with Tabuai-Fidow, bobbling and regathering before eluding the valiant Selwyn Cobbo for the equalising try. The celebrating group of Blues was six-strong then eight, then more, by that time fully swallowing the tryscorer.
Tedesco, however, has proven hard to restrain. And with the roving TV camera as witness, he broke free of his teammates. With one Blue arm still hugging his throat, the great fullback roared up into the night, and delivered another monument to State of Origin.
