The Origin concept has been invigorated, year after year, by Queensland being greater than the sum of its parts and NSW being lesser. Queensland overcomes its remoteness, its victimhood, the biases against it, and somehow defies gravity. The state of NSW has 32 per cent more people and 35 per cent more rugby league players than Queensland. Even when the Maroons were stacked with immortals, NSW often seemed to have a better team on paper. On paper, the Blues won. But in the Origin played on grass, the Maroons have 26 series wins (or draws that counted as wins), the Blues 17. Two things were evident on Wednesday. One was that NSW were so much better than Queensland, it wasn’t funny. Not funny ha-ha, not funny peculiar, not even funny in a gloating, up-yours-Queensland kind of way. More like sad funny. NSW put in a five-out-of-ten performance and won by 12. A margin of 20 would still have flattered Queensland. The second thing was that, as Andrew Johns said, it was no better than an average NRL game. That was flattering too. Both sides had the fumbles. Often this doesn’t matter, because there’s always the Queensland passion and hatred, the boiling blood of Origin. Where was that?