{"id":698544,"date":"2026-05-27T20:20:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/698544\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T20:20:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T20:20:15","slug":"ethan-strange-performance-rocks-footy-world-in-incredible-state-of-origin-debut-as-nsw-blues-beat-queensland-maroons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/698544\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethan Strange performance rocks footy world in incredible State of Origin debut as NSW Blues beat Queensland Maroons"},"content":{"rendered":"

The footy world has hailed Blues star Ethan Strange after he produced an \u201cunbelievable\u201d performance on his State of Origin debut.<\/p>\n

NSW came from 20-6 behind at halftime to claim a famous 22-20 comeback win in Sydney on Wednesday night after Kalyn Ponga was controversially sent off.<\/p>\n

Panthers superstar Nathan Cleary was officially named Man of the Match, but it was Strange, 21, who was only called into the starting team 48 hours ago following Mitchell Moses\u2019 injury, who caught the eye of most viewers.<\/p>\n

Watch Strange reflect on his Origin debut via the video player below<\/p>\n

\"Strange<\/p>\n

Reacting after fulltime, Blues legend Andrew \u201cJoey\u201d Johns said: \u201cThe debut of Ethan Strange, he was a powerhouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he sparked them down this left side, his running game he was unbelievable on debut, you\u2019re looking at someone who\u2019s going to be playing hopefully 30 Origin games, he\u2019s just made for Origin, he was devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queensland icon Cam Smith also hailed Strange, who scored a try in the 63rd minute, saying: \u201cHe was the best player for the NSW Blues tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m with you (Joey), I think he was the best player on the field, he was the most dangerous ball runner for the Blues the entire night, it\u2019s a wonderful debut considering only 48 hours ago he was thrust into that position.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Strange<\/p>\n

Teammate Cleary said: \u201cStrangey on debut was unbelievable, he\u2019s just an absolute beast, so proud to take the field with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Journalist Lachlan Jeffery reacted: \u201cI\u2019ve seen enough. Make Ethan Strange a permanent inclusion in the Blues team and make his dad the coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murray Conallin added: \u201cGees Ethan Strange has been great in debut, he and Hudson and been massive.\u201d<\/p>\n

League Freak said: \u201cLike what I saw with Cleary and Strange when they combined.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some reason NSW coaches have wanted the halves to be complete strangers on the field for the past 20 years!\u201d<\/p>\n

Adam reacted: \u201cKlein has just completely flipped the momentum of this game, crazy stuff. Ethan Strange has been mint though.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strange said: \u201cIt means a lot, I grew up watching the Blues, always had a skip in my step when I went to school the next day (after an Origin win).\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally published as \u2018Unbelievable\u2019 Origin debut rocks footy world as Blues fans rejoice<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The footy world has hailed Blues star Ethan Strange after he produced an \u201cunbelievable\u201d performance on his State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-698544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}