Blues star's stunning gesture for Munster's father

Among the stirring tributes to Cameron Munster’s father Steven during State of Origin Game 3 was a beautiful gesture from NSW star Brian To’o.

The Blues winger wrote “Steven †” on his wrist bindings – in reference to Munster’s dad who died suddenly last weekend - for the series decider which Queensland won by 12-points at Accor Stadium.

Posting a video of his left wrist to his Instagram before the match, To’o captioned the vision: “No weapon formed against me. Go time baby. RIL Steven Munster.”

RIL stands for rest in love.

An opposition player demonstrating such a public acknowledgement is seldom seen in the sporting world and the move is a testament to To’o’s character and how highly regarded Munster is within the NRL community.

EMOTIONAL NIGHT

"For Billy and Cam" was the message from Queensland players as they became Origin champions.

The Queensland team has been under intense pressure the entire 2025 series, starting with a big Game I loss at home, before Slater came under fire for comments towards former Blues prop Aaron Woods on the eve of Game II.

Queensland’s largest challenge however was rallying around their captain Munster.

Queensland, inspired by the adversity their captain and coach had experienced, played to near perfection, only making two errors in the match, and dominating NSW from the outset.

Maroons' winger Valentine Holmes revealed the bond within the group, and the desire to perform for their captain and coach, inspired the Maroons to a historic win.

“I think you knocked it on the head there, the word connected,” Holmes told SEN post-game.

“It was a pretty emotional week, this week for not only our team but our captain and our leader on the field.

“We obviously wanted to do it for him, wanted to do it for the team, wanted to do it for our family, wanted to do it for our state.

“We obviously had a lot to play for.”

Munster conceded after the siren just how tough the week had been.

“Yeah look, it’s a tough one,” Munster said.

“Like a high of emotions. I think when someone loses someone, you forget about it sometimes, but then it brings back memories and obviously, I just want to say thank you to all the rugby league community. They’ve been outstanding.

“I’ve had so much support and text messages from not only obviously rugby league, but also the NSW team, so just shows what kind of character those guys are and yeah, just forever grateful.

“And rugby league and that I think family is more important than anything and a lot of people showed that the last couple of days and really got behind me, so I want to say thank you to all those people and thanks for coming out tonight."

“I just asked him to (give me) as much energy as he can,” Munster added.

“He (didn’t have) a whole heap of energy, he was a big boy, but I needed 10 per cent of him.

“I love him and obviously I’ll grieve and deal with what I have to deal with (now).

“I went out there and it’s one of those things…I had to go out there to earn it, we all had to earn.

“It wasn’t written for us. We had to go out there and work hard.

“Thank you to my Mum, My sister, my partner Bianca and the kids.

“I just want to say thank you for getting behind me this weekend. I know it’s been a tough time, but yeah, I guess at the end of the day, that’s life.

“And I just want to appreciate everyone that’s been around me and make this week so special. And yeah, we’ll enjoy it tonight and can’t wait to obviously go next year and hopefully see what we can do. But thank you guys. Have a good night.

Every one of Slater’s selection gambles throughout the series paid off, etching his name alongside those of the great Origin coaches.

Slater’s shock decision to drop incumbent captain and halfback Daly Cherry-Evans for Tom Dearden after their poor Game I loss at Suncorp Stadium worked flawlessly as Dearden owned Accor Stadium in Game III; awarded Player of the Match after a two try performance to go with 124 metres, a line break, and a line break assist.

Slater called Josh Papalii out of retirement for one last heroic performance and Papalii rewarded him with an inspiring effort while even Queensland’s shock centre combination of Robert Toia and Gehamat Shibasaki outclassed their far more experienced NSW counterparts.

For Slater though the man of the night was his captain.

“I don’t like ranking things but I’ve never felt like this,” Slater said.

“The bloke to my left (Munster), that’s as courageous and brave as I’ve ever seen.

“I lost my dad in January, I know what it’s like, I know what it feels like. Our dads are our heroes.

“I don’t know how he did it, but within 10 minutes of sitting with him in his room on Sunday morning he looked at me and said ‘Bill, I’m playing’. I know his dad would have wanted him to and boy that is one proud dad up there tonight’.”

Maroons' hooker Harry Grant revealed how the squad wanted to rally behind Slater.

“Game I wasn’t how we wanted to perform, and we made some changes real quick… credit to our coaching staff and this playing group for how we stuck together through that,” Grant told SEN post-game.

“One thing we wanted to do was have our coach’s back and have our captain’s back.

“We love him (Slater) so much and he puts so much time into this football team as a fan, then a player now as a coach the only way we could repay him and so we appreciate him… is through our performances.

“It’s history, it’s in the books now.”