Queensland coach Kevin Walters has blamed a lack of smarts for his side's game one loss.
Walters said his side's spine didn't bring enough organisation to the contest and couldnt execute the plays they wanted to run, especially when close to the try line, in a 22-12 defeat.
Maroons coach Kevin Walters attends the post match press conference.
Photo: AAP
"I think we didn't play smart enough to win the game of footy," Walters said.
"Hats off to NSW, they played a great game and we expected that of them but we didn't rise up to the level we wanted to be at from a smarts point of view.
“I thought our effort was what you would expect from a Queensland team and Ive seen lesser efforts rewarded with a win in Origin.”
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When pressed on where his side could play "smarter", Walters said they couldn't execute the plays they had planned to make.
“A few little things we wanted to do in the game with our attack — we just didnt execute properly tonight,” Walters said.
“I thought we got a few good opportunities to use some plays we worked on but we couldnt quite get them into the game.
“NSW were very smart with what they did and executed really well — if you only have one handling error in the second half you will put yourself in a good position to win the game.”
Walters said he felt captain Greg Inglis was the teams best player on the night and others could follow his lead.
“If we had 17 Greg Inglis then we probably would have won that game but we only had one,” Walters said.
While Walters thought the contentious strip of winger Dane Gagai early in the second half could have “gone either way”, Inglis was clearly unhappy with the decision saying “lets just leave it” when the play was brought up.
Walters hopes to have Billy Slater to bring into his side for game two but admitted it would depend on Slaters recovery from a troublesome hamstring injury while he didnt rule dynamic back Kalyn Ponga in or out of the side.
“We hope to get Bill back and this was Kaylns first experience at Origin and he was 19th man,” Walters said.
“We expect him to play some sort of role whether it is in game two, game three or even into 2019.”
There were no significant injuries reported from the Maroons although five-eighth Cameron Munster was sporting a nasty swollen eye after a head-clash with Blues forward David Klemmer in the first half.
Roy Ward is a Sports writer for The Age.
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