Andrew Fifita likely to make way for Gallen

The Blues endured a siege they in the second-half from a superstar Queensland team, and only conceded five points.

The Blues’ defence was outstanding on their goal-line and will give them hope of possibly winning the next two matches.

However, if they want to win they will have to hang onto the ball, and somehow stop Queensland from gaining 50 metres or more every set.

The Blues can defend admirably as much as they want, but at some point they will need to score points, and in the second half, the only way they could get into Queensland’s end was through Queensland errors.

The Blues will have to find a way to build more pressure, and with captain Paul Gallen returning for the second match, and he might be the solution to their problems.

The Blues picked Aaron Woods and James Tamou to start, and picked bench props David Klemmer and Andrew Fifita, along with Trent Merrin on the bench.

Someone will have to fall out of the side for Gallen to return, and based on game one, Fifita will likely drop out of the team and Josh Jackson will move back to the bench.

Woods and Tamou were dominant against the Maroons’ pack in the opening 30 minutes of the game, but the Blues stopped making metres as soon as the pair came off.

Klemmer and Fifita replaced the pair, with Merrin coming into the game in the later stages with fresh legs.

Klemmer put in a near perfect performance in his debut; he ran and tackled hard; he made some excellent tackles, which probably saved tries, and made plenty of metres with the ball; he was rocked by the diminutive Michael Morgan once in a tackle, but apart from that he showed exactly why he was picked for Origin and surely secured his place for the entire series.

On the other hand, Fifita had little impact on the game; he did not make many metres or generate many offloads; while Fifita’s game was by no means terrible, he certainly did not have the impact Laurie Daley would have liked out of him.

The Maroons made plenty of metres with their forward pack, which was dwarfed by the Blues one, by running straight and hard.

Woods, Tamou and Klemmer ran straight and hard, but Fifita only did it a handful of times, and when he did, he had little impact.

Fifita impacts the game by using his strength, size and speed to hold off tacklers and generate offloads.

He did manage one offload late in the game, which helped the Blues get into field goal range, but having a guy in the team to generate one offload seems like a liability.

Based solely on his game one performance, Fifita is the likely candidate to make way for Paul Gallen's return.

Of course, the other person who might be sweating on the return of Gallen is Trent Merrin.

Daley said before game one that the reason Luke Lewis was left out of the side was he wanted four specialist props in the team.

If Daley considers Gallen a prop, then he would only need prop on the bench, and David Klemmer demanded that he stay in the side with his performance.

If that were the case, then both Fifita and Merrin might drop out of the team, with Luke Lewis to come back in.

Fringe players Ryan James and Tyson Frizell could also come into consideration, although given how the Blues lost the first game, Laurie Daley might opt to go with an experienced campaigner in Luke Lewis.