Jesse Southwell is too young to be making a comeback but when supreme talent and State of Origin are concerned, time has a funny way of turning. It's not her return that's a great shock. The Blues lost the series last year and changing up the halves following an agonising Origin defeat is as much a part of New South Wales as not being able to afford real estate in Sydney. With a new coach in John Strange, the Blues need a new approach. That can start with Southwell, who was overlooked for Rachael Pearson and Corban Baxter last year after making her Origin debut in 2023. She has looked like the future of the sport ever since she steered the Knights to their first NRLW premiership as a 17-year-old crackerjack playmaker with no fear, all the skills and the kind of technical acumen that can only come from playing rugby league your whole life. It gives her a prodigious command of her own abilities, a style that seems naturally assured and a seemingly limitless scope for what she can achieve in rugby league. Turning around the Blues' fortunes might seem like a lot to ask of Southwell, who is still just 20 years old and whose best football, even after all she's already accomplished, may still be years away. Halfback play is more of an art than a science and a long career has peaks and valleys like a mountain range. But she is the kind of player for whom great expectations are made, to the point that every success seems ordained, like it was always supposed to happen, and every failure is just a minor setback in a career whose trajectory seems as certain and true as anything in football can be. It's a lot to carry and heaping the weight of the world on prodigies has been the undoing of many a young star. But when a halfback has two NRLW premierships to their name while they're still a teenager, nothing else seems to really fit. So it makes all the sense in the world that Southwell is back here, that her clash with Ali Brigginshaw shapes as a moment where the past and the future collide in the present, as the Novocastrian tries to do what no other Blues halfback has done and deliver New South Wales their first-ever Origin series win in a multi-game format. This is meant to be her time and, if the side named by Strange is anything to go by, it will also be her team. Blues five-eighth Tiana Penitani has experienced a career renaissance in recent years at centre, but her experience in the halves is limited to one Test for the Jillaroos where she was a late replacement and one game for Tonga. Her move into the halves is a curious one as the Blues are hardly bereft of options. Kirra Dibb, who partnered Southwell in the halves during that first Knights title and has blossomed as a playmaker since joining North Queensland, has not made the match-day 18, and Baxter and Pearson were overlooked from the squad entirely. Emma Verran nee Tonegato is in the side and has plenty of halves experience. However, barring a last-minute reshuffle, she'll come off the bench. Debutant fullback Abbi Church is better known as a runner than a creator. She did not accumulate a single try assist in last year's NRLW campaign, as excellent as it was. From the outside looking in, it seems that much of the creative and organising responsibility will fall on Southwell. The Blues are not just betting on her, they're betting the house. She will not be without some play-making support. Olivia Kernick will start at lock and her passing game was a feature of New South Wales's victory in Origin I last year, and utility Jocelyn Kelleher will help off the bench. But when it comes to the killer touches, the spark that feeds the strike, it must be Southwell who leads the way. She'll also be tasked with the majority of the kicking, which means she'll have as big a say as anyone can in closing the game out. Finding that balance between creativity and pragmatism at Origin level is among the hardest tasks any half ever faces. It is not in everyone, but that's why it's the stuff of legend. It's what cost the Blues last year as they let the series slip through their fingers with a narrow loss in Newcastle and a comprehensive one in Townsville. It's why Brigginshaw is counted as one of the finest female players in history and why her halves partner, Tarryn Aiken, is rapidly carving out her own place in Origin folklore. Southwell has it in her to do the same, and it can begin on Thursday night. She has time and ability on her side, and missing last year's series and the Knights falling short of a third-straight title would have taught the important lesson that football isn't all beer and skittles, which she'll be a better player for learning. New South Wales are asking her to put the result on her shoulders and they're asking her to do it now. It's as great an expectation as can be placed on a player, and many an Origin halfback has crumbled under the weight of the challenge, but meeting those expectations is where greatness lies. That has always been the endgame for Southwell. Between her fast start to life in top-level football and unquestionable ability, she has always had an impossibly luminous promise. Fulfilling it might take a lifetime, if it can ever happen at all, but the next step begins on Thursday at Lang Park at the moment when the howls of the Queenslanders are in her ears, the ball is in her hands and the game is on the line.