Smug New South Welshmen have cost the Blues State of Origin glory time and time again, writes MIKE COLMAN, and history repeated on Wednesday night

If Queensland wins the State of Origin series that starts in Adelaide on Wednesday night, the first person their coach Wayne Bennett should thank is former NSW captain Paul Gallen (pictured with wife Anne)

If Queensland wins the State of Origin series that started in Adelaide on Wednesday night, the first person their coach Wayne Bennett should thank is former NSW captain Paul Gallen.

Bennett, who has been the brains behind some of the Queensland Maroons' greatest wins over the years has been parachuted in to rescue this year's seemingly hopeless campaign against the strongly-backed NSW Blues in a storyline that is eerily similar to the last time he answered a distress call, back in 2001.

In fact, so close do the scenarios align that the late, great league commentator Rex Mossop might say, 'it's deja vu all over again'.

Just as they were back then, the star-studded Blues are short-priced favourites; the Maroons have been forced to select a squad of no-names and wet-behind-the-ears youngsters, and the NSW media – led by Gallen - is writing them off.

To which the 70-year-old Bennett is no doubt saying, 'Perfect.'

Personally, I don't think the Maroons will need too much extra motivation for this series. I'm tipping a 2-1 win to Queensland. 

The way I see it, the coaching combination of Bennett and Mal Meninga with a whole heap of young kids who want to impress them will have too much enthusiasm for the Blues who have been there and done that, listening to the same message from their coach Brad Fittler over the last few seasons. Also, this is a weird series - three games a week apart at the end of an unusual season. I think that unreal quality will bring the two sides closer together.

Gallen (pictured during his playing days in 2018) last week described Queensland players as imposters, and declared: 'I can't see them getting close to the Blues to be honest'

But on top of that, if there is one thing Bennett loves, it is to have NSW critics provide the ammunition he needs to fire up his team. In fact, if it isn't happening to his satisfaction, he is not above manufacturing some himself, like the time he enlisted former Maroons front rower Greg Dowling to write a newspaper column calling the Queensland forwards 'pussies'. It worked. They won.

This year he can save the cost of a phone call to Dowling. Gallen has done the job for him.

Speaking on Sydney radio last Monday, Gallen described the young, inexperienced Queensland players as imposters, and declared: 'I can't see them getting close to the Blues to be honest.'

Music to Bennett's ears – and to Queensland supporters.

Since 1980 when Origin was first played in order to give NSW-based Queenslanders the chance to represent their home state, the Blues and their supporters have been writing them off.

Bennett is no doubt saying 'Perfect' to the Maroons status as massive underdogs - and Gallen's jibe at his troopers 

Leading the Maroons out on to Brisbane's Lang Park that night was legendary Roma-born front rower Arthur Beetson, 35 years old and playing reserve grade for Parramatta.

'He's past it,' the NSW media and fans said. 'It's a joke. The Blues will hammer them.' Sydney radio personality Ron Casey wrote in his newspaper column, 'Beetson will never go in hard on his NSW mates.'

Not so much. Beetson played one of the great knocks of his illustrious career, setting the scene for decades to come by belting his Parramatta and Australian team-mate Mick Cronin, and inspiring Queensland to a 20-10 victory.

It's been that way ever since. The 'Canetoads' of Queensland will go into a series as rank underdogs and invariably come out on top of the NSW 'Cockroaches'. It is a regular occurrence that has frustrated Blues supporters and thrilled the Queensland faithful for 40 years.

How do they do it? Many put it down to 'The Queensland Spirit' – an almost mythical state of mind that the late NSW coach Jack Gibson once derided as poppycock.

'Well he would say that, wouldn't he?' said Maroons legend Paul 'Fatty' Vautin. 'He's not a Queenslander.'

But sometimes spirit and the ubiquitous call of 'Queenslander' roared out on the field and from the stands is not enough, which is when a bit of outside help is required in the shape of mind games, sneaky tricks and unwitting motivation by the NSW media.

In 1987 when Bennett plucked pint-sized halfback Allan Langer from the backwoods of Ipswich and pitch-forked him into the Origin cauldron, respected NSW league writer Peter 'Chippy' Frilingos labelled it 'a one-way ticket to oblivion'.

'Thanks for your help Chippy,' Bennett might have said as Queensland won the series 2-1, with Langer man of the match in the deciding game.

NSW Blues coach Brad Fittler and Maroons Coach Kevin Walters with the State on Origin Sheild at Elder Park in February - before the series was postponed due to coronavirus 

In 1995, with Queensland decimated by the Super League War, it was former NSW captain Benny Elias who said the understrength Maroons didn't deserve to be on the same field as the mighty Blues.

Saying that even a NSW B side would beat the Vautin-coached Maroons, Elias (who would hold the mantle of Most Unpopular Cockroach until usurped by Gallen in the mid-2000s) went so far as to call for the series to be cancelled in order to save rugby league from embarrassment.

Vautin's 'Neville Nobodies' destroyed the star-studded Blues in a 3-0 series whitewash.

That monumental against-the-odds win rates as the greatest upset in Origin history, but when it comes to one-off masterstrokes it still takes second-billing to Bennett's sleight-of-hand in 2001.

The previous year the Wayne Pearce-coached Blues had beaten Mark Murray's Queenslanders 3-0. If that wasn't bad enough on its own, NSW won the final game 56-16 and rubbed the Maroons noses in the dirt by celebrating their last try with a choreographed 'hand-grenade' celebration – try-scorer Bryan Fletcher pretending to pull a pin out of the ball and throwing it in the air as the rest of the team fell to the ground as it 'exploded'.

It was a well-rehearsed insult that the Blues would come to regret in years to come.

Bennett told me later that he decided to come back to the Maroons fold after speaking to a still-despondent Queensland captain Gorden Tallis a few months after the game.

'They were all so shattered. They didn't know which way to turn and I felt so guilty,' Bennett said. 'I felt I'd let them down by not coaching them. That's when I decided to come back. I hadn't been asked but I knew I had to make sure something like that didn't happen again.'

Alexander Brimson and Phillip Sami run during a Queensland Maroons State of Origin training session at Cbus Super Stadium on October 30

The Blues were justifiably confident when the next series rolled around, especially when Bennett picked nine debutants in his 17-man squad for Game 1. Many were youngsters but the NSW media concentrated on the older players he had gambled on.

'We had a lot of young blokes like John Doyle and John Buttigieg that no-one had heard of and some older ones like Kevin Campion,' he said. 'In Sydney the papers were calling us Dad's Army and all the rest of it. They were right into us and as far as we were concerned that was all the better.'

From the kick-off the Blues didn't know what hit them, with newcomer Lote Tuqiri slicing through the NSW defence and setting up a Darren Lockyer try in the opening minutes. Tallis could hardly believe what was happening.

Former Queensland captain Gorden Tallis

Midway through the half 20 year-old Carl Webb committed the cardinal sin and overcalled his captain, grabbed a pass meant for Tallis, then ran sideways and was easily pulled down.

'Hey mate,' Tallis told him angrily. 'Next time you call over the top of me you'd better do more with the ball than that.'

Just before halftime Webb ran onto a pass and beat five of the Blues best defenders in a zig-zag bumping run to score.

As they walked off for the break leading 16-4 Tallis put his arm around Webb and said, 'Mate, anytime you want to call over the top of me, just go right ahead.'

The fulltime score was a whopping 34-4 win to the Maroons and, as Bennett said, all Queenslanders walked a little taller – for all of two weeks until Tallis badly injured his neck playing for the Broncos against Manly and was ruled out for the rest of the season.

Without their inspirational leader the Maroons were easy picking for the Blues in the second match, going down 26-8.

All of which opened the door for Bennett to pull off his greatest coup.

Blues coach Brad Fittler speaks to the media in Sydney ahead of State of Origin Game One 

Langer had quit the Broncos midway through 1999 after battling fatigue and poor form. In 2001 he had come out of retirement to play for Warrington in the UK. Bennett had always regretted the manner in which his favourite player had walked away from the game on a downer. The 2001 decider gave him the chance to rewrite history and beat the Blues at the same time.

'I needed an inspirational leader, someone they would follow,' Bennett told me. 'In a situation like that if you can't have Gorden Tallis there's only one other person, and that's Alfie.'

When Bennett rang Langer in the UK to ask if he would come back for the game the response was, 'What took you so long?'

Secrets in rugby league usually last about as long as an ice-block on a summer's day but somehow Bennett and his co-conspirators managed to keep the news to themselves – and had some fun along the way.

I was amongst the group of journalists waiting outside the room as the Queensland selectors put the final touches to their team list. Early on, selector Gene Miles emerged and headed for the carpark.

'Did you get an early mark Geno?' a veteran reporter joked.

'Just have to pick Alfie up from the airport,' he said with a big smile. Oh how we laughed – until we found out he was telling the truth and we'd all missed the story. 

When it was finally announced the next day, it kick-started a media frenzy. Front page, back page and every page in between, all anyone wanted to talk about was Alfie. My then sports editor, now Brisbane radio host Neil Breen, told me to go forth and not return without an Alfie story.

I tracked down his mother in Ipswich.

'What was the first thing Allan did when he arrived back?' I asked her.

'I sat him down for some bacon and eggs,' she told me.

'ALFIE HAS BACON AND EGGS' was the headline on the next morning's paper.

It was a huge weekend of sport in Brisbane. The British and Irish Lions rugby team was in town to play the Wallabies on the Saturday night, with the Origin decider on the Sunday. Rugby union fans and journalists from all over the world were in town scratching their heads about the fact that there was little to no news about their game because of some little rugby league player that none of them had ever heard of.

A rugby journalist from BBC Wales interviewed me live on air to explain to his listeners back home what this Alfie thing was all about.

Langer is is congratulated by Bennett after the Queensland coach pulled off an historic coup in 2001 

'It's ridiculous,' he said. 'There was a story on the front page of the paper saying what he had for breakfast.'

'Hang on,' I said. 'I wrote that story. That was a big scoop.'

I think he thought I was joking, and I was. Sort of.

On the Sunday night Queensland won the series decider 40-14, Langer sending the crowd into raptures when he was pulled down centimetres from the line but reached over his head, backwards, to score a try.

It was arguably his greatest moment, and Bennett's too.

And now, almost 20 years later, history if repeating itself. Backs to the walls, a bunch of no-names and kids; the NSW media filling their pens with vitriol, and Wayne Bennett reaching into his bag of tricks.

Expect the unexpected, and if things get desperate, who knows? There might be a phone call to a little 54-year-old halfback from Ipswich that goes something like this:

'Alfie? It's Wayne.'

'What took you so long?'  

Jake Friend of the Maroons passes the ball during the Queensland Maroons State of Origin captain's run at CBUS super stadium on Sunday