Season Tracker
The club competition takes its Origin break and the series has our full attention, so the tracker gets its Origin update first. Game 2 went exactly the way we called it, Queensland getting up at the MCG to bank the 2.5 unit Best Bet on the Maroons head to head. That takes us to +59.10 units for the season, and the record stays firmly in the green heading into the back end of the year. One game left in the series now, and it is the one that decides everything.
New South Wales won a Game 1 for the ages, hauling themselves back from 18-0 down to steal it 22-20 in Sydney after Kalyn Ponga was sent off. Queensland answered in the only way that mattered, blowing the Blues off the park 44-24 in Melbourne in front of a record Origin crowd of 91,671. That leaves us here, one game to settle the shield, at Suncorp Stadium where the Maroons have built a fortress across the best part of two decades. One game tonight and a Best Bet on it. Here is how I am reading the decider.
Queensland vs New South Wales
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Queensland come home for the decider with the ledger and the venue behind them, 25-17 up in the all time series and a fortress at Suncorp, where they have won six of the eight deciders played since the ground was redeveloped, all six on the trot before New South Wales broke through in 2024. Billy Slater is chasing a fourth series in five years, and there is no sweeter way to seal it than at home. Game 2 is the frame for everything tonight, and it swung on a single half. New South Wales led 12-8 at the break and were the better side for forty minutes, only for Queensland to pile on 36 points in the second half, Munster at his vintage best, Cobbo helping himself to a hat-trick and Walker kicking eight from eight on his way to man of the match. Their 44 was the most Queensland have scored in an Origin game since the 2015 decider, and a half like that tells you exactly what this side can do when it clicks.
The team sheets tell two very different stories. Queensland have barely touched a winning side, Patrick Carrigan back from the ankle surgery that kept him out since May and Jeremiah Nanai onto the bench, the pair in for Lindsay Collins, out with concussion, and Kulikefu Finefeuiaki. New South Wales have gone the other way entirely, six changes and plenty of noise with them, Brian To'o dropped for a debutant in Jack Bostock, Kotoni Staggs out for Bradman Best and Stephen Crichton in the centres, Liam Martin into the second row and Blayke Brailey and Haumole Olakau'atu back through the pack. That is a lot of change for a decider in enemy territory. Cleary and Moses are a familiar halves pairing, so the playmaking is not where the Blues are exposed, it is the reshaped back five outside them, and Queensland counter with Walker and Munster off big Melbourne games behind a settled pack. The Blues middle of Haas, Barnett and Murray holds up on paper, and if anyone can drag them through a hostile decider it is Cleary, but Queensland have the platform, the momentum and the crowd.
I will declare my hand again, I am a New South Wales fan, and just about everything above points to Queensland. I am not going to pretend otherwise, I think Queensland win this game. But watching how that second half unfolded in Melbourne, I expect New South Wales to come out a lot tighter in defence tonight, at least to begin with, and a Game 3 decider tends to be a different beast to a game that had already slipped away three weeks earlier. Call it the Blues fan in me or call it the narrative, but I think they are in with a fighting chance. I am not tipping the upset, Queensland are the ones I expect to get the job done, but I would not be shocked if the Blues pulled it off, and if they did I would be over the moon.
The line sits at Queensland -5.5, and the winning margin is where my Best Bet comes in. There is every chance this turns into a blowout, I am not going to sit here and say it cannot, but the way Melbourne played out and the way deciders tend to tighten have me expecting the Blues to keep this within reach. Queensland to win by 1 to 12 is the play, and it is my Best Bet for the game. I am keeping it light, only because there are a few different ways this one can go, but it is the bet I like most on the card.
On the spread I lean Queensland without betting it. If the margin does stretch out it likely comes down to the boot, and Sam Walker has been on fire there, eight from eight in Melbourne, so a couple of extra goals could carry the Maroons home by more than a converted try. That is enough for a lean and nothing more. The total is a no play too. Game 2 was a points fest, there have been points all over the park this season and Queensland clearly want to throw the ball around, so I doubt they park that for one night. A decider being a decider I lean slightly to the under, but with no real confidence either way I am staying off the 44.5.
On the tryscorer board I am on both Mark Nawaqanitawase and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, the Blues winger who grabbed a double on debut in Melbourne and the Maroon who just keeps finding the line. I gave real thought to Selwyn Cobbo straight out, on the back of the hat-trick he helped himself to in Melbourne. I have left him out of the anytime market on his own, but I do fancy him packaged with the win. The reason I have gone down that avenue is the value in it. I think Queensland win this game and I rate Cobbo a strong chance to get over, so rolling the two together into a same game multi, Queensland to win with Cobbo to score, gives me more of a value play than backing him on his own as an anytime tryscorer.
And then the spicy one, and I will be upfront, this is a pure narrative call. Liam Martin is a true Origin player, all grit and work rate, a strong ball runner who gets himself into the middle of everything. He comes back into the side on the right edge after missing the first two games of the series, and I just think he turns up tonight with a point to prove. He has the form line for it too, with two first tries already to his name this season for the Panthers, and at Origin level he opened the scoring in Game 2 of the 2024 series as well. So this is where I land, and there is a reason I am taking the early tries over the anytime market. With Haumole Olakau'atu sitting on the bench, the likely pattern is Martin going hard for the first fifty to fifty-five minutes before Olakau'atu comes on for him, so an anytime bet effectively hands back the last twenty to twenty-five minutes of the game. I would rather have him to land inside the first three tries, and to open the scoring outright. It is doubling down on Martin getting over early, I know, but for mine that is exactly where the value sits.
The Bets
Best Bet: Queensland to win by 1-12 $2.75 (1 unit)
Mark Nawaqanitawase Anytime Tryscorer $2.10 (0.5 units)
Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow Anytime Tryscorer $2.02 (0.5 units)
Same Game Multi: Queensland to win and Selwyn Cobbo to score $2.38 (0.5 units)
Liam Martin to score the 1st, 2nd or 3rd try $14.00 (0.25 units)
Liam Martin First Tryscorer $34.00 (0.25 units)