Have a look at the video below to see today’s dust-up, which resulted in Michael Jennings copping 10 minutes in the sinbin for his Superman effort after teammate Greg Bird was surrounded by eight Queenland players.
After an offside penalty on Mitchell Pearce, his teammate Bird shoves Queensland prop Matt Scott over as he is getting up. Scott tosses the ball at the NSW number 6’s head and Bird immediately turns, fists raised against half the Maroons team.
He is soon joined by teammate Luke Lewis, who runs in fists blazing before Jennings and the rest of the blues arrive en masse for a quick brawl, the highjlight of which is Blues halfback Pearce landing a punch on the chin of the much larger Sam Thaiday.
In the aftermath, Jennings was sinbinned, despite NSW captain paul Gallen’s strange protestation that “Sam Thaiday has been running for years.”
Send-offs are fairly rare in the Origin cauldron, where a popular theory exists that players can get away with anything – or at least a lot more than usual – in the turbo-charged environment.
Jennings was charged with contrary conduct for which he will face a one-match ban with a guilty plea.
There was even more anger in the final 10 minutes when Queensland’s Greg Inglis was awarded a record-breaking and match-sealing try despite dropping the ball over the line.
”How is that a try?” Gallen asked the referee as Queensland goal-kicker Johnathan Thurston lined up the conversion to complete an 18-10 win. ”This is out of control. This is ridiculous.’
And after you’ve watched today’s little rumble, check out the one from Origin 2010 gam one, in which NSW’s Luke O’Donell performs a dangerous tackle on Darius Boyd, and then goes on the rampage in the ensuing brawl, launching a headbutt and a handy uppercut.
