View photos: Sports fans' week from heavenKEY POINTS:
Just when the punters were saying State of Origin was fading, the beast comes back and bites where it's most noticed - on the backside of New South Wales.
The level to which the game has improved staggered me and I can't wait for the rematch at Telstra
Stadium, when the Blues' home record will make them favourites to level the series. And it all points to a sensational decider and what is already shaping as the best series ever.
Origin is about tradition - but it's more about change. It's the testing facility that takes the game to new heights. Nothing of the same old, same old. But that's what I fear has happened at the Warriors.
There are two ways coach Ivan Cleary could have gone about turning his side around after three straight losses and a trip down the ladder: Change personnel and address attitude.
It appears Cleary might be trying to protect his players and has gone for the soft option, working just on attitude. By doing that he's taken the heat off his players and turned it on himself. He's shown faith in his players, but if he doesn't get a result against the Eels on Monday, it will look like blind faith.
Cleary needs to put the pressure back on the blokes on the field. They're the only ones that can turn it around. But he needs to make personnel changes, too.
It should have been obvious last week that Lance Hohaia needs a regular starting spot in the halves.
He's one of the few Warriors who takes the ball to the line, has uncanny anticipation and a genuine change of pace. Sadly that's what they have been lacking. I find it staggering Hohaia's not wearing six or seven, where the side is showing a real lack of spark.
I don't think wholesale changes are needed in the forwards, but they could use an injection of the unknown, especially in the back row. Their same-old, one-dimensional pattern is starting to set off alarm bells. My concern is that the Eels will know they can beat the Warriors, and precisely how to do it.
Teams have already set a winning pattern against them: take them on in the forwards and you're halfway there. In fact, the Warriors forwards are getting a reputation that that's where the softness lies in the side. It's all very well to come out with a bellringer of a tackle in the opening stanza. But you have to get up and do it again, and again.
Likewise their marker defence, which in past weeks has been abysmal. There won't be a dummy-half operation in the whole NRL that won't have noticed this easy passage into Warriors territory.
It's time they rolled their sleeves up and got stuck in.
The club has obviously put some time and resources into Sonny Fai - it's time to give him a go. He might be inexperienced, but he has speed, can offload and brings flair. His performance in the Premier League for the Auckland Lions hasn't been top class - but he has shown that he's got class.
If they can't get someone to match the incredible energy that Warriors captain Steve Price brought to Origin I, they won't be able to stop the slide.
I've seen every Origin match since 1980, and Price's performance on Wednesday matched any I've seen from a prop in those 27 years.
It's not just me that thinks this about the Warriors.
Ask the old lady who collared me on the flight back across the Ditch yesterday. She didn't sound like a coach, but she knew the fundamentals: "They just don't keep going."
So if there's one word Cleary should take out of that Origin game it's relentless. Even down 18-6 Queensland were relentless.
It showed in the way Darren Lockyer continually backed up kicks when so often he went without reward.
They worked great at their marker defence and also gained momentum with the ball out of dummy half.
All relentless. Recipes for success in this ever-developing and quickening game.
It's a word and a way of playing the Warriors need to chisel back into their playbook.
Otherwise, in the words of someone else on that flight across the Tasman yesterday, it's like inviting someone to your wedding and letting them run off with your bride.
