THE Maroons will need to conjure all of their fabled Queensland fighting spirit to keep their State of Origin series winning streak alive after NSW scored a shock 12-8 win in Game I at Suncorp Stadium.

The match was a celebration of Origin’s 100 games, and also a tribute to the late, great Arthur Beetson, with the No.11 jersey he wore into the first Origin game in 1980 retired for the night.

Queensland were massive favourites, but the Blues produced a lion-hearted performance, that now has the Maroons’ eight-year run of wins on a knife-edge as the series heads to Sydney for Game II.

Worse news was the fact that the Maroons were decimated by injury, losing halfback Cooper Cronk in the first 10 minutes of the game to a broken arm.

By full time, the Queensland dressing room looked like a casualty ward with Billy Slater (AC joint), Daly Cherry-Evans (hip) and skipper Cameron Smith (ankle) among the walking wounded.

Queensland have become renowned for slow starts, but this time it was the opposite, leaping out of the blocks and scoring a good try down the left edge through Darius Boyd.

But when Cronk left the field hurt, Queensland seemed to lose their attacking rhythm, while the Blues grew in confidence as every minute passed.

Fullback Jarryd Hayne was dynamic for the Blues across the park, scoring a crucial try in heavy traffic and threatening the Maroons’ defensive line every time he touched the ball.

Despite the disruption caused by Cronk’s injury, Queensland coach Mal Meninga was not blaming that for the Maroons’ loss

“We’re lucky we had Daly and (an injury) does throw you off,” Meninga said. “It takes your bench to three and in this environment it makes it difficult for the players but they handled it really well.

“We played out our 10 replacements because of that, but that’s not an excuse. I still thought we did enough to win that game.

“NSW to their credit were defensively outstanding. Their scramble defence was fantastic and I thought their kick-chase was excellent too, which is a really good sign of their attitude.

“They came well prepared and ready to play.”

Meninga and the Maroons of course have seen this situation before.

They lost the first game of last year’s series as well and still went on to claim the shield – and that was with two games in Sydney last year.

So understandably, there was no panic from Meninga afterwards, just an acknowledgement of the work that needed to be done to get the series back on track in Game II.

“The effort from both sides was fantastic. The desire from both sides was tremendous,” he said.

“We tried hard … we missed a few opportunities throughout the game to score points.

“That’s what Origin is all about – it’s about taking opportunities when they arise and we couldn’t quite do that tonight.

“Two tries all, so we live to battle another day.”

NSW 12 (Morris, Hayne tries; Hodkinson 2 goals) d QLD 8 (Boyd 2 tries) at Suncorp Stadium. Crowd: 52,111