Cleary needs to play five-eighth if Blues are to win decider. It worked in the 2023 grand final

“The toughest rugby league game I have ever seen,” is Paul Sironen’s verdict on the 2024 State of Origin decider in Brisbane. It’s rare praise from a man who played 14 Origin games for NSW, winning all four series in which he played every game.

Nine NSW players back up on Wednesday night from that furious 2024 contest, won 14-4 by the Blues.

Mitchell Moses is again in the halves, but splitting duties with Nathan Cleary, who replaces Jarome Luai.

If NSW are to win this year’s final game, again in Brisbane, it is crucial that Cleary moves to five-eighth at critical times and snaps his hoodoo of losing every Origin decider.

It is the key to the enigma of Cleary having only a 47 per cent success rate in Origin, yet winning four consecutive NRL premierships and two Clive Churchill Medals as man of the match in a grand final.

In this year’s first Origin match, Cleary played half and Ethan Strange five-eighth, and both orchestrated the Blues comeback after Queensland’s Kalyn Ponga was sent off.

In the second match, Moses replaced Strange and neither he nor Cleary played five-eighth.

They rarely combined, playing like two NRL halfbacks anchored on opposite sides of the field.

Cleary’s greatest performance was in the 2023 grand final against Brisbane when he engineered three tries in 14 minutes to turn a 24-8 deficit into an improbable 26-24 victory.

Cleary played outside replacement half Jack Cogger during that incredible comeback period while Luai was sidelined with a shoulder injury.

It is not as if Cleary was suddenly dropped from the sky to play five-eighth on that absorbing evening.

“Nathan was originally a five-eighth,” said his father and NRL coach, Ivan. “He was five-eighth for the Junior Kangaroos and Australian Schoolboys. He moved to half when he teamed up with Jarome Luai and grew into the role as a game manager.”

Cleary snr has too much respect for NSW coach Laurie Daley to enter the territory of this year’s Origin series and muse over his son occasionally positioning himself outside Moses.

In Origin, the rucks are faster, the gaps close quicker and the defence is disciplined and as swift as a heartbeat. It is less suffocating on the edges where Cleary would have more space, especially if he gets quick ball.

Furthermore, he will have NSW’s big centres, Bradman Best and Stephen Crichton, outside him.

Origins suit big five-eighths, like Wally Lewis, Brett Kenny, Cameron Munster, Brad Fittler and Daley. Cleary is 3kgs heavier than Munster.

The Blues leadership is aware of Cleary’s talents as a wider running half and hopefully have been rehearsing his link with Moses at training.

Cleary snr said he used the Cogger-Cleary combination during the 2023 finals, interchanging them until it was “seamless”.

“Jack was more suited to half, and Nathan could do both. Thank god we did that,” he said.

Another change NSW must make if they are to win is to use their replacements earlier, rather than hold them back and roll them out when the game is lost. Daley will be understandably conservative with his interchange, especially since four of his starters have had limited game time recently: Liam Martin, Blayke Brailey, Best and Moses.

However, it is essential that bench dummy half Brailey comes on midway through the first half to replace Reece Robson, who was “cooked” at the end of 80 minutes in Melbourne.

The Blues need Brailey’s deception at the play-the-ball, not only to stop gang tackles on their one-man wrecking crew, Payne Haas, but to take pressure off the NSW kickers. Importantly, lock Isaah Yeo and fullback James Tedesco position themselves near the ruck, meaning a clever dummy half can bring them into play.

Some will view these changes as equivalent to moving the deck chairs on the Titanic, arguing a Queensland victory on home turf is inevitable.

NSW and Queensland have each won two halves of the first two Origins, but it can’t be denied the Maroons won their two halves by significant margins: 20-6 in the first half in game one and 36-12 in the second stanza in game two.

The conventional wisdom is that, apart from the Ponga send-off, the Maroons would have rolled over the Blues in both games.

Furthermore, Queensland’s answer to the nine NSW players backing up from the 2024 decider is that they also have nine returning, and one of them isn’t Munster. He was injured, and is their spiritual leader.

The faith the Maroons have in the unpredictable Munster defies ordinary standards.

When he was playing poorly for the Storm in April, one of the Queensland elders remarked to Maroons assistant Johnathan Thurston that the Melbourne five-eighth might lose his Origin No.6 jumper.

Thurston’s response was curt, arguing Munster’s errors were all to do with his Storm teammates.

How they can be blamed for Munster missing a tackle on, for example, his Canberra opposite and subsequent Blues benchman Strange, when there was no other player within 15 metres, requires a massive leap of faith. But Queensland do that.

Yet, so do NSW.

At a dinner held at Allianz Stadium on Monday, June 29, players from the 1996 NSW team joined the current Blues on stage. The 1996 side won all three games, including two in Brisbane, with the same 17 players.

They collectively expressed confidence in the Blues winning at Suncorp, encouraging them to abandon conservative play in their own half and their predictability in setting up play for a later tackle. They urged them to embrace read-and-react football.

Origin games rarely go to script. Spontaneity is what distinguishes sport from other forms of live entertainment and games where the best play the best usually produce impulsive, instinctive acts of brilliance, such as the two tries in quick succession by Best and Moses in the 2024 decider.

Sironen repeated his view of that memorable contest: “It was the toughest I have ever seen. They went at each other set for set. It came down to who would blink first. Fortunately, it was them.”

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