Hard reputation: Andrew Fifita is a destructive player. Credit:Getty Images Vaughan is a strong runner, with the occasional defensive error, while de Belin is in his best form, breaking the line and capable of creative play. Prop Aaron Woods is big and while he seems to have been hollowed out by the contract dramas at Wests Tigers, any loss of punch in the Blues front row has been compensated by the form of Andrew Fifita. Fifita now knows he has earned his intimidating reputation by the hard-to-achieve mix of fearlessness and flamboyance, not by demeaningly tapping opposition players on the head. But the Blues have a new hooker in Nathan Peats who has not played with anyone likely to be calling for the ball.

Cameron Smith gives Queensland the edge at dummy half. Credit:Getty Images Given the higher speed of Origin matches, it will be hard for him to service this pack with pinpoint passes, while also supplying the halves with quality ball. Should Peats be replaced, Jack Bird has been nominated as the one to take his place in a position he has never played. Bird will be full of impact in runs from dummy half, but the constant bending of his back and delivering the ball to first receivers or forwards on the advantage line will be a challenge. Dummy half is not a position for dummies. When coaches put players there to fill in at training, it's not long before the complaints about aching hamstrings and sore bums and backs can be heard.

Queensland, however, has the world's best player, Cameron Smith, in this position. While most of the Queensland pack have been chosen on past efforts, Smith's skill goes a long way to compensate for the below-par club form of Nate Myles, Aiden Guerra and Jacob Lillyman. As for the rest of the Maroons forwards, only Josh Papalii has the speed and menace of the Blues. Papalii will play bodyguard for the targeted Anthony Milford on Queensland's left side, with the five-eighth standing between the Canberra monster and the Storm's Will Chambers. Milford has not played well for 18 months and he will feel like he is on the nearby freeway at rush hour without a car. Chambers is usually right-centre for the Storm but is capable of playing on the left, as he did for Australia against New Zealand in the Anzac Test. He will be marking his co-centre from that game, NSW's Josh Dugan.

The other side of the field offers an interesting duel between a flighty centre and a past champion with only recent experience in the position. Queensland's right centre, Justin O'Neill, is erratic and easily discouraged, while the stellar efforts of his opposite, Jarryd Hayne – where he single-handedly turned a game into a magnificent mess, improvising from fullback and wing – were years ago. Should Chambers make a mid-game switch to the other side of the field, a change he has made with the Storm, he could duplicate the domination of Hayne that he demonstrated in a recent Melbourne-Gold Coast match. O'Neill won't enjoy much assistance from Dane Gagai, if the Queensland winger's recent form for Newcastle against Penrith is any guide. But nor is the Blues' fullback, James Tedesco, playing well.

Transporting him away from the fall-out of Wests Tigers' implosion, into a warmly familiar environment, may be what he needs. Given the doubts over his recent form and Bird's preferred role as starter, it may have been better to choose Penrith fullback Matt Moylan on the bench. Queensland's Darius Boyd is a great defensive fullback but if the Maroon forwards turn the ball over, Smith and his half, Cooper Cronk, will be troubled trying to replace panic with patience and score points. After all, the three players who have historically broken Blues hearts with a last minute try, the dream destroyers when NSW has been on the cusp of victory, are missing: Billy Slater, Johnathan Thurston and Greg Inglis. The best teams fix things when they are winning, not after they start to lose.