NSW already won the series but now they\u2019ve made State of Origin history. <\/p>\n
Amid calls for bigs changes to the calendar next year, the Blues became the first women\u2019s team to cleansweep an Origin series and the first NSW team since 2000 to win 3-0 with a 12-4 victory over Queensland at Cbus Super Stadium on Thursday night. <\/p>\n
It marks an incredible milestone for John Strange\u2019s NSW side, who are now back-to-back series winners and looked unstoppable throughout all three games. <\/p>\n
They won the series with a 14-10 win at Suncorp Stadium a fortnight ago but Queensland were desperate to avoid a history making whitewash on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
IN THE FIGHT<\/p>\n
With pride on the line in front of a home crowd, Queensland showed plenty of energy in defence and held out an early onslaught from the Blues who threw everything at the line. <\/p>\n
Spirited NSW winger Jayme Fressard was denied by a brilliant tackle from Jasmine Peters, while Blues skipper Isabelle Kelly finally crossed in the 27th minute as the defence grew tired.<\/p>\n
Shortly afterwards Peters scored for her first try of the series on Queensland\u2019s first venture at the other end of the field.<\/p>\n
Midway through the second half NSW pounced on a stack of possession, and a try to Fressard put the result to bed.<\/p>\n
Kelly saved her best game of the series for last and was named player of the match for her efforts, while Blues second-rower Yasmin Meakes was awarded the Katrina Fanning Medal as player of the series.<\/p>\n
\u201cYas was outstanding in every game, just such a competitor,\u201d said Strange.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve coached her at club a few years ago and she\u2019s a really competitive human being. I think if you want to be successful, for me as a coach, you recruit players that have a natural competitive nature who will do anything to win and then you\u2019re a very good chance of being successful.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s certainly got that.\u201d<\/p>\n
CALLS TO MOVE THE SERIES<\/p>\n
It was a scrappy end to the series for both teams with a combined 22 errors for the night. <\/p>\n
Completion rates were an issue across all three games and will continue to be a talking point for women\u2019s Origin as long as the NRLW season starts after the series is over.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s crazy that our first footy for the year is meant to be the highest quality game of the year,\u201d said Queensland captain Lauren Brown.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s unfair to the players and the product to expect us to be at our best quality of football when it\u2019s our first few games. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf it was the NRL this would still be our trial games, games one, two and three. The majority of girls would love it to be intertwined into the NRL season, however, we just play the cards we\u2019re dealt and this year Origin is at this time, we had a great preparation and a great pre-series but would obviously love to have more footy under our belt before playing Origin.\u201d<\/p>\n
As it stands players enter Origin camps six weeks before game one, with a fortnight between each game. <\/p>\n
The NRLW season kicks off in early July and pre-season has already started for clubs.<\/p>\n
ON THE UP<\/p>\n
Queensland are deep into planning for the future under first-series coach Nathan Cross.<\/p>\n
Without skipper Tamika Upton, the Maroons blooded Gold Coast fullback Destiny Mino-Sinapati in the No.1 jersey on Thursday night as well as Broncos forward Lillian Yarrow from the bench. <\/p>\n
In total, Cross handed out six debuts across the series with Phoenix Raine-Hippi, Chantay Kiria-Ratu, Ivana Lolesio and Otesa Pule all impressing in their first Origin experience.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the second series loss in a row for the Maroons, who were also without experienced stars Julia Robinson and Makenzie Weale for game three.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overwhelming feeling I have is pride, you\u2019re obviously disappointed to lose but I look around at those girls and see the future and I\u2019m so excited by what\u2019s ahead,\u201d said Cross after the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat NSW team is a great team and sometimes class and experience will win in the end, and it did this time, but we\u2019re coming, and we\u2019ll see them next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
STRANGE NIGHTS<\/p>\n
It was a whirlwind 24 hours for NSW coach Strange who was in the sheds at Accor Stadium on Wednesday night with his son Ethan after his sensational Origin win on debut for the Blues.<\/p>\n
He left Sydney early on Thursday morning to return to the Gold Coast for game three, where he watched his team lift the shield for the second straight series under his watch.<\/p>\n
He said he got just an hour of sleep, one less than his usual two.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great, jumped on a plane early this morning to come back and just wanted to make sure I was doing everything I could to help these girls prepare, but to be fair they were ready to do what they did today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last 24 hours have been pretty full on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NSW already won the series but now they\u2019ve made State of Origin history. Amid calls for bigs changes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[340967,64,63,689,340968,106243,259658,112843,267009,2485,22886,24575,25174,54317,120954,54310,120943,302212,761,762,673,158,677,340966,154944,701,13385,42342,41564,47911,85,670,54355,340965],"class_list":["post-700148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-matchidwso20260301","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-back-to-back-series-winners","tag-brilliant-tackle","tag-completion-rates","tag-day-widget","tag-ethan","tag-gold-coast","tag-history-books","tag-home-crowd","tag-home-turf","tag-isabelle-kelly","tag-jayme-fressard","tag-john-strange","tag-julia-robinson","tag-nathan-cross","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-new-south-wales","tag-nrl","tag-oceania","tag-origin-whitewash","tag-pamela-whaley","tag-queensland","tag-queensland-maroons","tag-season-kicks","tag-season-starts","tag-series-loss","tag-sports","tag-sydney","tag-tamika-upton","tag-win-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700148","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=700148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}