A bit of detail wouldn’t go astray there.

Absolutely correct. We haven’t been given a single instance of how the ref helped Qld. Actually I thought the pass from Hunt to Hodges which resulted in the first Qld try may have been marginally forward.

But before the first NSW try we were pressing the NSW line, the ball came free and NSW were given the scrum. The video showed that there was a strip. I couldn’t blame the ref for not seeing it. It is probably an example of where intervention from the video ref would be helpful, because that particular problem happens quite frequently.

A bit of detail wouldn’t go astray there.

On balance NSW did very well as usual with the referees. Simpkins reffed like a man who did not want to put any blue noses out of joint. He learned his lesson from game one.

The amount of squealing from NSW after game two would have done a rollercoaster ride proud. Danny Buderis crying about the ruck area is like Ronny Biggs complaining about theft. Buderis a great player without doubt but certainly gets a lot of lattitude at times from referees and probably gets through at least three forward passes per match that other players wouldn’t get away with. His complaint about Price taking a dive was absolutely laughable. Did anybody bother to ask Bailey why he would put himself in a position like that while having the ball in his hand. It was just plain dumb play from Bailey no doubt about it.

I don’t rate Shane Hayne but to suggest he contributed to NSW loss in game 2 is just plain silly. NSW had enough ball in game 2 to win three origins and couldn’t do it. Not good enough fullstop.

He did everything he could to give QLD the win. I don’t think he had a good game at all. That said anyone could’ve been a better ref than Hayne.

Nor would I select Kimmorley as half back in NSW side without Bird outside of him

In fact most of the NSW team I wouldn’t have selected – that’s one of the reasons they lost.

That being said, I agree with Warren Ryan that the notion of “dominant tackles” and players saying, “We have to win the wrestling” is a blot on the game. Ryan says that the rules committee decided a couple of years ago that more latitude would be given in this area after North Queensland and Wests-Tigers contested the grand final by playing fast open football. The big influence on the rules committee is the coaches and they wanted more given back to the defence because they didn’t have the players to match the NQ and the Tiges. Ryan was there at the meeting where it happened.

It’s not in the interests of the game – basically a disgrace. It makes our game less attractive than the English game.

I know that a couple of years ago NSW were using a stopwatch to time the holding down so they could maximise it. So you can assume that all teams are coached to do it now.

Last night as Queensland tired I think NSW were getting more people into the tackles which probably is why they were being given more latitude under a stupid rule.

On the other hand as Bennett said a couple of years ago, refs know what to do to avoid being sacked. It happened in the first season when the Broncos entered the competition and were playing Manly. Annesley missed a bounced put-down between the posts. The following week he was refereeing reserve grade.

So Kapunda might be right. You’d need a scientific investigation to prove it, though.

Meanwhile I’m sick of these cheap shots whenever someone brings up the refereeing. I brought it up in the first two games when we won. I don’t think the standard of refereeing is all that good, so I’d hope we could talk about it sensibly.

No different to it was the coach the ref and Hindmarsh not getting eighty minutes I guess.

Big difference. I’m being objective.

We went in one forward short to fit Bowen into the team and when we lost Johnson in the first tackle it threw the game plan into disarray. It’s a 17 man game and one short is a problem. Three short is pretty much insuperable.

My Oxford Australian Dictionary gives both pronunciations for maroon. For me it’s always been meh-roan, firmly accented on the second syllable of course. But the ABC’s language expert said that north of the border was muh-roon. But then he was a Mexican, so would he really know?

I’m not from up North and have supported NSW in the past but I have got to say QLD have never had a fair shake from the ref in the modern era. Blind Freddy could tell you while NSW have the casting vote on who refs that that will be the case. The officiating has been so pro NSW for so long that when you get the odd ref who puts in a balanced performance he is so pilloried by Gould and the general football media that he soon gets the message not to make that mistake again.

The Blues finally played to their strengths (hence Hayne and El Masri scoring). Still QLD were gallant in defeat and worth foes. Enjoy the series win as NSW will come back next year and this year will mean nothing.

Apologies for not having a chance to live blog Origin as well.

Simpkins obviously got the message from his sacking from the second game. I lost count on the amount of time the third blues player flopped on his mates making the tackle. Usualy penalised at club level. The 50\50 decisions certainly went with NSW and Simpkins imo certainly had it in mind which team it was better not to upset. As they say in the classics thats football.

We had three coaches who lost two series – Wally Lewis, Mark Murray and Michael Hagan.

(Is that muh-roon or meh-roan? I understand the latter pronunciation is only found in Australia.)

That’s kinda interesting, because it suggests that in Australian English, there’s a different pronunciation for the verb to maroon and the noun maroon, which have distinctly different meanings.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/maroon

Queenslanders will be proud that the Urban Dictionary lists “maroon” (the noun) with a definition specifically relating to the State of Origin team, but possibly not happy to read its other colloquial meanings:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=maroon