If Origin is a genuine Kangaroos audition, Nathan Cleary isn’t your No. 7

3 hours ago 2

Nathan Cleary is regarded as the best player in the NRL – but he will have to wait another year to end the debate about him “owning” the Origin stage.

In fact, if the Origin series was a true Kangaroos audition, Tom Dearden would be wearing the No. 7 jersey in the end-of-year Ashes series.

Cleary struggled to have an impact on the series decider when his state needed him most.

Queensland were brilliant with the ball, which gave them the energy to rush up in defence and pressure the Blues all night.

Cleary, who was forced to make 30 tackles, had few answers when two and three Maroons were in his face at the end of sets all night. The halfback struggled to come up with creative ways to catch Queensland off guard.

If we are being fair dinkum, the few times the Blues actually looked like scoring were when they moved the ball left through the hands of Jarome Luai, Latrell Mitchell and Brian To’o midway through the second half.

There was a lot of water-cooler debate before Wednesday night about how Cleary could not be considered a true great until he had dominated Queensland. Andrew Johns owned the Maroons. Allan Langer terrorised NSW.

Nathan Cleary is wrapped up by Maroons forward Pat Carrigan.

Cleary has won four premierships at the age of 27. The only blot on Cleary’s CV, allegedly, was his lack of success on the Origin arena.

As Phil Gould said at the start of the week, Cleary is still young, and has time on his side.

But he would have loved nothing more than to inspire the Blues to a victory most of the 80,256 fans inside the ground thought was a formality before kick-off.

Cleary is a perfectionist. He is a deep thinker. You can take it as read this loss to Queensland will haunt him for a long, long time.

He went into game two in Perth with a groin injury after tweaking it at the captain’s run. It almost looks like he has lost about 10m to 15m with his kicks in general play ever since.

Dearden, on the other hand, was in everything for the Maroons. His defence was just as good as his attack.

Whoever coaches Australia will give serious thought to handing the halfback role to the North Queensland Cowboy.

Cleary and Mitchell Moses combined for NSW in game one for victory. Maybe the calf injury to Moses, which he suffered in camp in the lead-up to game two, hurt the Blues more than they thought. In hindsight, the Eels’ skipper’s long kicking game was sorely missed the remainder of the series, especially with Cleary being limited.

Moses sat in the coach’s box behind Laurie Daley at Sydney Olympic Park.

If Cleary is forced to answer questions about his place on the Origin arena, what about Daley? He won just one of five series the first time he coached against the greatest Queensland side ever. Daley led 1-0 after Brisbane and had the team on paper that should have gone on to complete a clean sweep.

Daley has another year on his deal to right the wrongs. A year is a long time for Daley. It might feel like even longer for Cleary.

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