Greg Alexander is renowned as one of the smartest halfbacks to have ever laced on a boot - and he is still one of the most respected brains in the game.

Think ‘80s rugby league and memories which might stick for most are of brawling, sweaty, seething prop forwards grinding each other into sun-cooked or mud-caked suburban ovals. But the game had its beautiful side back then, too.

Our more stately readers would’ve admired the work of the great thinkers and ad-lib on-field craftsmen of the day – warriors like journeyman Phil Blake and Parramatta’s then-blond wizard, Peter Sterling. Before the days of structured corridors of attack and “A and B” defenders, all play was broken play. These silky-skilled magicians were too hard to stop – two slap-happy training sessions a week were never enough for the big men to figure out how to combat their deadly ball delivery and ballet-like footwork.

Penrith’s Greg Alexander was another one. The prince of Penrith is still renowned as one of the smartest halfbacks to have ever laced on a boot. Like Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy, Alexander was “kind of a big deal” in Penrith in his heyday. He picked up the game’s biggest individual accolade, the Dally M Medal, in just his second season in the NSWRL comp in 1985, and would later become just the second player in history (after Terry Lamb) to score 100 tries and 1000 points for the one club.

He ducked off to Auckland for two seasons in the mid-90s, but he’ll always be a Panther – he’s sat on the football club’s board since 2002, meaning his passion for the game kept pumping through his veins long after his retirement in 1999. Viewers of Fox Sports’ NRL coverage can see this bright-eyed enthusiasm, and listeners of League Today on Sydney radio station 2UE each afternoon and night can hear it in his youthful, still-breaking bark.

His is still one of the most respected brains in the game, so who better to talk Origin, sleeping giants (of many varieties) out western Sydney way and rugby league’s turbulent but promising land-scape than the man they call “Brandy”?

We’ve broken the back of another blockbuster State Of Origin series – as a former Blues player, does the sound of the Maroons approaching each year make you think, “Oh no, here we go again”?

Over the last couple of years, there’s been argument and debate about who should be in the New South Wales side, and although it’s not forgotten, sometimes we can forget what a good team they’re up against. This Queensland side ... it’s the best ever. I was “fortunate” enough to play against the other great Queensland units which had Lewis, Miles, Meninga, Langer, Belcher and the like; this current one’s right up there. We only have to look at the individuals in the Queensland line-up and even the form some of them are in now.

Slater and Smith and Cronk, the latter who’s been part of the side but not starting ...

They’ve had Thurston and Lockyer; these blokes have played football together for so long now that those combinations ... they know each other’s games. I suppose that’s the argument: Ricky Stuart said last year he wants to build a side and pick a nucleus of a squad and try and keep it together for those reasons – to build combinations. But it’s hard to stick with players who are out of form and getting beaten.

We’ve been massive underdogs, really. On a whole, even though we’ve picked some players in wrong positions and made some selection mistakes, we’ve been competitive against a great outfit. I think all New South Wales supporters think we’re an outside chance ... No one gives up completely.