Queensland Maroons need to make changes to get back into this State Origin series, but there aren’t that many they can make

After a tough loss to Toronto during the 2000 NBA season, Boston Celtics coach and president Rick Pitino had a reality check for fans and media who were down about the legendary franchise’s fall from grace.

“Larry Bird’s not walking through that door, Kevin McHale’s not walking through that door and Robert Parrish is not walking through that door. And if you expect them to walk through that door they’re going to be grey and old,” Pitino said.

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With a few different names subbed in — let’s say Thurston, Smith and Cronk — the same sentiment applies to Queensland’s State of Origin side right now, with Game II a week away.

Coming off a record loss in the series opener, the Maroons are clearly a long way off the pace set by New South Wales and need to change something.

Unfortunately for them, there aren’t a whole bunch of cards for them to play, with even Kalyn Ponga’s groin betraying them.

Trying to solve the problems without first knowing what they are is like developing a vaccine for a virus that doesn’t exist yet, so let’s diagnose the issues first.

The Blues won the battle through the middle comprehensively in Game I.

With eight set restarts to one, the Blues’ big men got a roll on, were rewarded with the whistle, and Damien Cook, Nathan Cleary and Jarome Luai took advantage against a bent and broken defensive line.

The return of Josh Papalii to Queensland’s front row and the hope that Christian Welch won’t get knocked out in the opening exchanges of the second game should pair well with Moeaki Fotuaika, who in Game I played better than a prop has any right to in a team beaten by 44 points.

The Maroons should also be banking on a better game from Tino Fa’asuamaleaui through the middle to shore things up against Daniel Saifiti, Payne Haas, Jake Trbojevic and Isaah Yeo, while Harry Grant should be better now that he has turned his engine over in a few games this past month.

The same goes for five-eighth Cameron Munster, who was pretty ineffective coming off a foot injury, especially when compared to his god-mode performance in last year’s decider.

So if the Maroons can hope to at least match it in the middle, where are the weaknesses that allowed them to get pounded to dust in the opener?

Well firstly, speaking of the middle, what was Queensland thinking leaving Ben Hunt out of its squad on June 9?

Grant was starting his first game for more than a month and hadn’t played 80 minutes all year, but the only other potential hooker being carried in the matchday 17 was full-time fullback AJ Brimson.

Now, Hunt isn’t a transcendental star, but he has represented Australia as a bench utility and can play to an NRL standard at 9, 7 and 6.

Putting the number 14 on Hunt for Game II is the most obvious move coach Paul Green can make to improve his team, but the answers aren’t as clear elsewhere.

Queensland’s central problem

The biggest problem for Queensland is it still doesn’t have a top-class centre to pair with Origin superstar Dane Gagai, and even he was steamrolled in the series opener.

Tom Trbojevic and Latrell Mitchell made Gagai and 2020 hero Kurt Capewell look pedestrian at best as they combined for five tries, 382 running metres, 15 tackle busts, three try assists and three line breaks.

After getting burned for the opening try by Trbojevic, Capewell did get one back on his opposite number with Queensland’s only try late in the first half, but it’s hard to see a back-rower as a viable option against someone of Trbojevic’s calibre.

Capewell would be a perfect bench option, coming on in the forwards and capable of stepping into the centres in a pinch, but the Maroons don’t really have that luxury.

Going through every NRL teams’ ideal starting centres, very few are Queenslanders.

Aside from Gagai, 2020 Origin debutant Brenko Lee is yet to take the field this year and Cronulla’s Will Chambers was fading as a rep star when he left rugby league two years ago.

The dearth of options is so evident that North Queensland’s Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow is a genuine option despite playing out of position for a losing side.

Still, he at least has the athleticism of an outside back and the potential to go 90 metres if he takes an intercept, which looked as likely to lead to points as any other plan for the Maroons in Game I.

Playing Brimson or Valentine Holmes in the centres is far from ideal, with Cronulla’s Ronaldo Mulitalo a wing option, but none of that strikes fear into the Blues camp.

Reece Walsh is also in the mix, just six games into the 18-year-old’s career — a selection so outlandish that even Warriors coach Nathan Brown said it’s “not in anyone’s best interests”.

Coach Green also needs to flip his second rowers. Not positionally, but tactically.

In the series opener, the Maroons seemed to have a plan to use Felise Kaufusi like a battering ram against five-eighth Jarome Luai.

Not only did Luai ace every test the Storm veteran threw his way, Kaufusi had one of the worst games of his Origin career and 2021 season on both sides of the ball.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, David Fifita tried to get a bit too cute with it.

Perhaps desperate to create something for a struggling side, the devastating fringe runner too often stepped and jinked back in-field towards the bigger defenders, who capably dealt with him.

Next Sunday he might need to take a few more opportunities to run hard and fast at Nathan Cleary and/or Trbojevic to get the inside defender to over-commit before flashing his fancy footwork.

But even if they do all that, it still probably won’t be enough.

Plus, this Blues side, when fit, is elite in the extreme (although claiming after one game that they’re good enough to beat the Maroons team that won eight straight series, as some in the media have, is farcical.

That side was overflowing with historic figures of the game. Immortals. Plural.

But again, they’re long gone and those north of the border had best get used to the idea.

If you go in thinking another miracle is on the cards, the next two games will be a bumpy ride. Lower your expectations a lot, because you can still enjoy that miracle if it comes, but it’s almost impossible to see that happening.

As Pitino continued: “As soon as [fans] realise that those guys are not coming through that door, the better that this town will be for all of us.”

“All this negativity that’s in this town sucks.”

In Queensland this Origin season, it’s not so much the negativity that will be the fan-killer. It’s hope.