The Queensland Maroons are a State of Origin mess.
There is really no way around the basic facts at this stage.
This is a team who have just lost back-to-back games at Lang Park for the first time in nearly 30 years, and scored just a single try in the series opener.
That came after Game 3 last year, where they didn't score a try at home against the Blues, instead only slotting a pair of penalty goals.
Game 2 of last year's series, held in Melbourne, saw the Maroons score three tries, but two of them coming during a ten-minute period when Liam Martin was in the sin bin.
Statistically speaking, Game 1 of last year's series is almost a write-off given Joseph Suaalii was sent off for his sickening hit on Reece Walsh just seven minutes into the game, but it's the last time Queensland have managed to score a substantial amount of points.
Even then, they looked clunky. 38-10 wasn't a true reflection of what the scoreline should have been against a gallant, but outgunned, 12-man Blues outfit who played that way for 73 minutes.
The bottom line is that Queensland's attack has simply not been good enough in any of their last three, and arguably, four, Origin matches.
They look a state outclassed, outmatched, and, for the first time in a long time, simply not up to the task at Origin level.
Personnel changes on the field might be likely for Game 2, but that will only go so far in terms of fixing the true issues in the Queensland camp.
And the biggest of the lot seems to be coaching.
If there is one thing Billy Slater should be able to get right, it's attack.
He was a champion fullback, and maybe the best we have ever seen, but he now is presiding over a team who have scored one try in their last 160 minutes of State of Origin football.
Press conference comments about how the team will play for the state, and, to paraphrase a little bit, bleed maroon for five million people, are only going to go so far, and they certainly won't ease the pressure of a coach who can't get his team firing.
Maybe the answer is dropping Daly Cherry-Evans, who became the oldest Origin player of all-time in Game 1, but what if it's not?
What if it's an attitude? What if it's structure? What if it's the way this team are being coached?
Because, as colleague and The Rugby League Coach Lee Addison pointed out in Part 1 of a two-part series (Part 2 will be released this coming week), Slater has plenty of issues in the way he seems to be instructing his playing group.
But more than that, Queensland are failing the pub test.
Being bullied is not something you have been able to accuse Queensland of much over the years at Origin level through the middle third of the field.
To have a forward pack who simply aren't being counted on to stand up and get the job done.
It's not as if Queensland don't have the cattle, though.
The nucleus of the forward pack who got the job done previously - 2022 and 2023, for example - are still there. Tino Fa'asuamaleaui, Reuben Cotter, Patrick Carrigan, and Harry Grant (who had his worst performance in Maroon in Game 1).
They are guys who are supposed to be the leaders of Queensland for the next decade, and yet, in Game 1, they had all the intensity of a training session at your local under-club's under-12s on a Tuesday night.
And the bottom line is that so much of it must come back to preparation, and the way Billy Slater is getting his side ready. The way he is setting them up, and the way the players are working through the week of camp with the former star.
Slater's honeymoon period at State of Origin level is well and truly over.
The problem for Slater is that the honeymoon period came against the now sacked Brad Fittler, who made more questionable decisions as a coach than maybe any who came before him, or, for the Blues sake, will come after him.
Michael Maguire came in last year and out-coached Slater. With the exception of playing with 12 in Game 1, the Blues looked a more well-drilled footy side, led by someone who understands and has a coaching background.
That was Slater's first major test, but the second came this year in the shape of Craig Bellamy.
Laurie Daley might be a front for the organisation, but Bellamy is undoubtedly providing him plenty in camp as the lead advisor.
He was in the coaches' box during Game 1, and that sort of experience will prove invaluable to a guy who simply hasn't been there and done that as a rugby league coach.
Slater simply doesn't have a figure like Bellamy around him.
What has become clear is that if Slater wants to save his coaching career, he needs to find his Bellamy.
He needs someone who can provide the coaching direction from someone who has been in the game for a very, very long time, and there is no better candidate for that role than Wayne Bennett.
Maybe it's pie-in-the-sky stuff to suggest a new staff member would be added approaching the halfway point of the six-week Origin window, but Slater must get on the phone with a man who has had success at every level of the game.
He is known as the best man-manager in the business, and if there was any doubt about his coaching pedigree at Origin level, he buried it in 2020 when he took what was then dubbed as 'the worst Queensland team ever' to a stunning series win.
Whether Slater wants to work with a more senior coach in an advisory role remains to be seen, but team selection will only go so far against a rampant Blues side who have never lost in Perth, and then would host a decider in Sydney.
He needs support on the coaching front, and clearly, from someone who is not currently involved in the setup.
Even the legendary Origin coach Mal Meninga had Michael Hagan - a man with a coaching pedigree - beside him for much of Queensland's run of dominance.
Meninga was the man to drive the Queensland spirit, and Hagan the man credited with much of the on-field success from 2010 onwards.
Slater needs something if he is going to save his coaching career, and the 2025 Origin series.
He looked broken after Game 1, and will be again after Game 2 without drastic movements.
