Laurie Daley has declared his new-look halves pairing of Mitchell Pearce and Trent Hodkinson as certain starters for game II – but there are no such guarantees for injured skipper Robbie Farah.
Farah admitted he was unsure about his prospects after suffering a shoulder injury in an ugly tackle from Queensland veteran Justin Hodges. The Queenslanders appealed for Farah to be removed from the play, claiming he had suffered a concussion, but to no avail.
The Blues are already missing plenty of experienced campaigners, with Paul Gallen, Greg Bird, Jarryd Hayne and Luke Lewis among the notable omissions from last year's series. They can ill afford to also lose Farah, who was skippering the side in the absence of the injured Gallen. However, the Wests Tigers hooker was unsure about his immediate future.
"I'm not too sure mate, I'll go for a scan tomorrow," Farah said. "I'll just ice up at the moment and assess over the next few days."
Daley wouldn't buy into whether the tackle which injured Farah deserved further scrutiny, saying "That's for the powers that be have a look at it and see what happens."
However, he was full of praise for Farah for playing through the pain barrier. "He was terrific," Daley said. "But that's what we come to expect from anyone who wear the NSW shirt."
The other talking point was the performance of the NSW halves. The combination of two halfbacks appeared to work for much of the encounter, but Pearce and Hodkinson failed to land the killer blow when the scores were deadlocked. After the Blues botched a chance to land a field goal, the Maroons marched the ball upfield and showed them how it was done, with Cooper Cronk again icing the game.
Ironically, last year's hero Josh Reynolds, who was overlooked, landed a superb field goal to get Canterbury home over Canberra over the weekend.
"I thought they were terrific, I thought they really combined well," Daley said of his halves. "Mitch played with control, Hodko did the job we wanted him to do. They will be there for game II. There's a headline for you."
Asked if Queensland had provided a lesson in how to win close games, Daley said: "Yeah, maybe. But that just comes down to fatigue. I guarantee you if they were in our shoes they would have been doing the same thing."
