SYDNEY: A Cooper Cronk drop goal got Queensland home 11-10 in the opening State of Origin rugby league match against holders New South Wales in Sydney on Wednesday.
The Maroons fought back from 10-6 down at half-time to outplay the Blues in the second half, with Cooper nailing the one-pointer with six minutes left.
NSW broke Queensland's eight-year Origin stranglehold with a 2-1 series win last season. After a strong first half they looked on target to win the series opener before a 80,000 home ground crowd at the Sydney Olympic stadium.
Tries from Josh Morris and Beau Scott had the Blues finishing the opening half the stronger, with their bigger forward pack making ground against the Queensland defence.
But the experienced Maroons took charge in the second half and winger Will Chambers levelled the scores with a try in the 55th minute.
NSW had chances to break the deadlock but took poor options deep inside Queensland's territory before scrum-half Cronk put the Maroons ahead with his game-breaking drop goal.
"We probably should have gone for the field (drop) goal earlier, but it was a really tough game of football, really physical and we hung in with true Maroon spirit," Cronk said.
Blues skipper Robbie Farah said his team let themselves down in the second half.
"We just had no ball in the second half. We let ourselves down with our discipline and our execution. Our second half was disappointing," Farah said.
"We had a couple of chances to tie the game up with a field goal but we didn't execute."
The second game of the Origin series takes place in neutral territory at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on June 17.
Comments
Comments are closed.