Queensland Maroons forward Lindsay Collins starred in his side’s title-clinching Game II victory over the NSW Blues on Wednesday night.
The eventual man of the match backed up from an extraordinary effort in Game I where he stole the headlines with a miraculous kick chase that set up Cameron Munster for the game-winning try.
Collins ran the most out of any Maroons forward (136), with 54 post-contact metres and a stunning 49 kick return metres to go along with 29 made tackles.
The spirited performance caught the eye of former Maroons coach Mal Meninga who praised Collins’ effort and embodying the Queensland spirit.
“42 minutes of mayhem for Lindsay it was unbelievable, I thought it was a great decision from Billy (Slater) to leave Lindsay on the bench,” Meninga told SENQ Mornings.
“He comes on and just wreaked havoc, he was unbelievably good… It’s what he did off the ball, he just chased everything, he made recovery tackles, jumped on the ball from kicks.
“He epitomised what Queensland spirit was last night, he led from the front, it was an unbelievably great performance by Lindsay and for all us Queenslanders it was a great performance from the whole team.”
Meninga noted that Collins’ starring performance didn’t overshadow the excellent performance of the rest squad, especially captain Daly Cherry-Evans and Cameron Munster
“The seven and the six were great, DCE was fabulous his kicking game was great, defensively was great that chase on Stephen Crichton was unbelievable… (it was) the moment of the match his experience and leadership skills was unbelievable,” Meninga added.
“Munster, I’ve never seen him get more involved in a footy game, I think he had something like 15 carries, he doesn’t have 15 carries in a game, he ran for over 150 metres.
“Defensively was outstanding, (his) kicking game was great I think they mixed up the kicking game really well, Ben Hunt had a kick, Harry (Grant) had a kick the variety in their kicking game was really good.
“The seven and six were extraordinarily good but Reece Walsh was great from out the back.”
The Maroons will be aiming to complete a clean sweep of the 2023 State of Origin series in three weeks’ time for Game III in Sydney.