Oct 30th, 2019

Oct 30th, 2019

Not even at the peak of the Queensland dynasty was a Kangaroos Test team dominated like this.

In the final match of the season for Australia's finest players, 14 NSW stars will take the field with just three Maroons.

That's in a Kangaroos set-up where two of the three selectors – coach Mal Meninga and Darren Lockyer, alongside NSW icon Laurie Daley – are Queenslanders.

With the Queensland dynasty still a recent memory, it is a staggering turnaround in just two years of Blues State of Origin supremacy.

The only Maroons selected for Australia vs Tonga were Cameron Munster, Daly-Cherry-Evans and Josh Papalii.

Raiders prop Papalii was incredible late this season, an instant Test pick. Yet if Luke Keary had not withdrawn from the Kangaroos squad, due to an ankle injury that he carried through the grand final, he may well have warranted a halves spot over Munster or Cherry-Evans.

Keary might have been born in Ipswich, but he's a NSW-eligible player and will only strengthen the Blues line-up if he's selected next season. He could have been the 15th Blue chosen to face Tonga. And two players added to the squad – Victor Radley and Clint Gutherson – are both from NSW.

The Kangaroos captain, now cemented, is Roosters hero Boyd Cordner; who made history by skippering an NRL premiership, a NSW Origin win and a Test victory this year. Cordner is the Blues' revered spiritual leader, while Cherry-Evans became Queensland captain this season after many years as a Maroons pariah.

Boyd Cordner and Cameron Munster during the Kangaroos' win over New Zealand. (Getty)

Three Queensland players from 17 equates to about 17 per cent of the Test team. Even when NSW were getting pummelled by a golden era of Maroons, the Kangaroos line-up was never so lopsided.

The 2013 World Cup final side featured 11 Queenslanders and six NSW players. The 2017 World Cup final team had nine Maroons and eight Blues.

Even the infamous Townsville Test of 2012, in which Queensland players celebrated victory by singing their 'aye aye yippee yippee aye' Origin ditty, featured just nine Maroons. That match is remembered as the nadir of Queensland dominance over the Test team, yet NSW stars Josh Morris, Brett Morris, James Tamou, Greg Bird, Paul Gallen, Robbie Farah, Ryan Hoffman and Tony Williams were all in the side.

The reason it felt like a Maroons Test team was due to the status of the Queensland players: all-time greats, playing the key positions. Billy Slater, Greg Inglis, Johnathan Thurston, Cooper Cronk and Cameron Smith were all there, at the peak of their powers.

James Tedesco: the Dally M Medal-winning NSW and Kangaroos fullback. (Getty)

The Maroons still own the Test halves pairing, with Munster and DCE, but NSW fullback James Tedesco has stamped himself as the game's best player and could keep Queensland superstar Kalyn Ponga out of the Kangaroos No.1 jersey for some time.

NSW hooker Damien Cook went up against a makeshift Maroons No.9 this season in Ben Hunt. Cook is cemented as Test hooker, while Hunt has dropped off the Kangaroos bench to face Tonga, replaced by debutant Cameron Murray; another Blues star, who was Dally M Lock of the Year.

Queensland are in something of an Origin rebuild, headlined by million-dollar teenager David Fifita. They barely lost this year's series; it took a last-gasp Tedesco try for the Blues to prevail in Origin III on their Sydney home turf. As always, the Maroons will return hungrier from the sting of defeat and subjugation.

But NSW will be playing for their first series three-peat since 2003-05 next season and they have the feeling of a rising dynasty under coach Brad Fittler, the Blues legend who has backed a sensational crop of fresh-faced talent. On the other side, great Queensland hopes such as Anthony Milford and Ashley Taylor have faded dramatically.

Payne Haas: Bronco, Blue, Kangaroo. (Getty)

Ironically, the Broncos have contributed Dally M Prop of the Year Payne Haas – who at 19 will feature on an all-NSW bench against Tonga – to the NSW cause. Versatile young Brisbane star Kotoni Staggs, 21, is another New South Welshman who may earn a debut under Fittler.

Keary has become a back-to-back premiership winner and a Clive Churchill Medallist at the Roosters, and is yet to play a game for NSW. He could partner Nathan Cleary, blooded five times under Fittler, in the Blues halves next season; or may play halfback alongside fellow CCM winner Jack Wighton if team fit allows.

That would let Latrell Mitchell slot back into left centre, after he was the Dally M winner for his position. Or, Keary could partner Dally M Halfback of the Year Mitchell Moses; another NSW-eligible player who Fittler has previously considered.

There were more NSW players (5) and more internationals (3) than Queenslanders in the 2019 Dally M Team of the Year, and one of the Maroons – Cameron Smith – is retired from representative football.

One top of Queensland's historically-low turnout for the Tonga Test, it gives the Maroons plenty of concerns heading into next season. The come-down from those unprecedented dynasty years is gradually becoming a nightmare.