“We’ve been saying for so many years that New South Wales just doesn’t get it, and they haven’t,” Campion said. “It has been a war cry of ours from a Queenslander point of view that they don’t get it. We’re talking about good guys and good culture, good on and off-field performances. But this year I think they’ve got it … unfortunately. They’ve picked a really good side, some good characters.”

Going back to Billy Moore’s comments about the Queensland philosophy of doing it for your mate, the Blues’ veteran five-eighth Jimmy Maloney made good listening at the post-match presser on Sunday night when asked about the talk out in the middle in the heat of battle, especially following James Roberts’ sin-binning.

Mutual respect between state skippers Greg Inglis and Boyd Cordner. (Photo by Getty Images)

“We just had to turn up for each other,” Maloney told the gathered media. “We knew what we had to do. We spoke about it beforehand; the match was never going to go to plan: it never does. Winning an Origin series is special, it’s hard to do for a reason.

“We said before the game there’d be things going against us. And that how we reacted to that and what we did would determine the result … We turned up for each other and we held on.”

Turning up for each other … So is this the turning point? Does NSW finally get Origin? We probably need to see a few more series wins from them for that theory to be proven outright. At least the attitude and philosophy has changed.

A catch cry like Billy’s “Queenslander” – a bluer version, of course - would be handy, too.

James Maloney and his men went into battle for each other ... an approach that has worked for Queensland for so many years. (Photo by Getty Images)