It’s almost 30 years since a Blues team came back to win a State of Origin series after losing the opener in Sydney, but two stars of that memorable NSW team of 1994 have laid down a blueprint for Brad Fittler’s men to follow.
Brilliant fullback Tim Brasher and giant back-rower Paul Sironen admitted things looked bleak for the Blues when Mark Coyne scored the famous last-minute try to win the Queenslanders an epic Game One that series.
“I know how this team feels – because it’s the same way we felt back in ’94,” Sironen, now a member of the Blues’ management team, told Wide World of Sports from Perth.
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“When you have game one at home you just have to win it – and we blew it.
“We didn’t play as well as we could have and we didn’t execute the way we trained and we knew we were really going to be up against it for the rest of the series.
“But what we did was turn that to our advantage by using that frustration, disappointment and anger at ourselves to spur us on.
“We levelled the series in Melbourne and it then all came down to the decider in Brisbane.”
Brasher has vivid memories of the lead-up to the all-important third match at Lang Park.
“Everyone was telling us about Lang Park being the cauldron and how we would cop it up there and I must admit I wasn’t all that confident in the week leading up to the game,” Brasher said.
“But then on game night, as our team bus went down Caxton Street and they came out of the pub and shook the bus and threw bottles at us, I think that actually did us a favour.
“It galvanised us, gave us a siege mentality and we were determined to go all the way.”
The Blues won the decider 27-12, with a young Brad Fittler playing in the centres.
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Players who made their State of Origin debut as teenagers
