What do the NSW Blues need to change for State of Origin Game 2?

The New South Wales Blues have fallen to a Game 1 defeat at the hands of the QLD Maroons in what was one of the best Origin games in recent memory.

It's hardly time to hit the panic alarm, but there is certainly plenty to work on for Brad Fittler's side who looked a step behind Queensland for much of the game.

Defensively, combinations were at times put to the test and failed to stand up, while their attack was clunky and disjointed for large portions of the game.

Fifth tackle options left plenty to be desired, and some players well and truly were away from their best following some selections which can only be marked down as questionable.

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Fittler's late swaps didn't appear to work either, with Cameron Murray and Junior Paulo both being well short of their usual impact off the bench, while Liam Martin playing 80 minutes didn't seem to be part of the program.

The Blues now face a daunting prospect of needing to win in Perth to keep the series alive, and then to do it again in a decider in front of over 50,000 Queenslanders at Suncorp Stadium in early July.

But it's Game 2 which must be the task at hand, and Fittler has plenty of questions to answer.

Here is what the Blues need to change to turn the series around.

The second row
Liam Martin and Tariq Sims were both highly ineffective for the Blues in the series opener, and it's arguably the biggest single point which Fittler will have to address before the side fly to Perth.

Sims' selection was always going to be a talking point one way or another.

The Dragons' second rower has been in very average form at club level, and that seemed to transfer over to Origin. He did run hard when he had the chance, but four missed tackles and a lack of involvement overall has left fans scratching their heads over his inclusion in the side.

The decision to start Liam Martin and then play him for 80 minutes is also under the microscope.

The Penrith forward made a costly error trying to latch onto an offload early in the game, and it didn't get much better from there on out for the hard-hitting edge forward who can also play in the middle.

Despite playing the full 80 minutes, he had less running metres than any Blue apart from utility Stephen Crichton to go with a handful of missed tackles.

Martin's position in the side shouldn't be under too much speculation, but his role certainly should be. It's quite clear that Cameron Murray will come back into the starting team for Game 2, and Brad Fittler's reasoning behind it - that Murray was coming back from a shoulder operation - made some degree of sense.

Still, with Sims likely to be dropped from the side and Martin going back to the bench where he can play as a combo forward to best fit the team's needs, the side automatically seems stronger.

It's not clear who would replace Sims, but Angus Crichton and Tyson Frizell are both proven performers and could stick their hands up, or Fittler could go for boom youngster Haumole Olakau'atu.

Forward rotation
There was something way off with the Blues' forward rotation last night. Whether it was the fact Cameron Murray came from the bench which threw things off or not is up for debate.

However, while Queensland took major risks with their interchange strategy to overthrow the Blues, Fittler seemed to forget his bench existed at times.

Only Murray played more than 40 minutes off the Blues' bench, with Junior Paulo managing just half an hour, Ryan Matterson 36 minutes and Stephen Crichton 28 - and that only seemed to be because Kotoni Staggs came off with a shoulder injury.

Paulo's impact in particular was as close to a disaster as you could get.

One of the competition's best props, Paulo never was able to get his motor going, managing just five runs in his half an hour on the field.

Payne Haas was at his best, but potentially 58 minutes was too many in a fast-paced, high-intensity Origin even for his enormous motor.

Things just didn't hit the mark for the Blues, and their interchange strategy needs a lot of work before the teams head to Perth.

Last tackle options
The Blues last tackle options were, at times, an absolute basket case during the series opener.

Nathan Cleary and Jarome Luai both struggled to inject any creativity into the game, and while Luai came up with both assists, the kicking game was also many, many miles off where it needed to be.

This isn't going to be a personnel change - Cleary and Luai have plenty of credits in the bank after last year's Origin win - but it felt a very different kettle of fish without having the time and space that was created on an almost regular basis by the roaming rolls of Latrell Mitchell and Tom Trbojevic in last year's series.

The two fullbacks who played in the centres were, in many ways, the difference between the two sides last year.

They set the opening two games of the series alight, and allowed the Blues to dominate through Cleary and Luai's collective genius. They might have been missing, but aggressive team changes from Queensland also hampered the way the Blues were able to attack.

Plenty of questions will be asked ahead of a now must-win Game 2 for NSW in the attacking department.

A proper utility to give Cook a break
One of the big differences between the two sides was the ability of Harry Grant coming off the bench and setting the game alight.

Ben Hunt serving as a halfback makes that entirely possible, as does the ability of Kurt Capewell to shift into the centres should injury strike in the outside backs, as they did last night when Xavier Coates went down with injury.

Hunt and Capewell are enormous advantages for Queensland given their versatility, and players the Blues can't match with what is currently available to them.

But Stephen Crichton isn't the answer.

His performance was very ordinary off the bench, giving away a penalty which led to the ultimately match-winning try, missing some tackles and generally having no impact on the game.

If Kotoni Staggs' injury is bad enough to keep him out of Game 2, and Latrell Mitchell fails to recover, then there is every chance Crichton will start, however, if he doesn't, he shouldn't be in the side. It's as simple as that.

It's hard to be sold on who the utility should be, but Nicho Hynes still seems like the appropriate option, with either he or Jack Wighton slotting in at dummy half for potentially five or ten minutes on either side of halftime to give Damien Cook the break he so desperately and clearly needed last night.

It's not going to match Queensland who brought Grant off the bench 25 minutes into the game, but it will be something.