Backs to the wall, ranks broken with injury and illness and still staggering after a walloping in game two, Queensland produced one of the great State of Origin boilovers, defeating New South Wales 22-12 in a brutal, brilliant decider at Suncorp before 52,385 fans.
The opening minutes were crazy in their intensity and physical carnage. Queensland’s first charge through Corey Oates sent Cameron Murray staggering. Murray left, never to return. Then Selwyn Cobbo was laid out, crunched by friendly fire tackling Matt Burton, and left Suncorp in a neck brace on a medicab. Then, in the third minute, a second Maroon and third casualty as Lindsay Collins went off as collateral damage from a savage Tom Gilbert hit.
