Backstage with Cooper & Matty Johns
Origin 1 REACTION! Ponga Send Off, NSW Steal It & Will There be CHANGES?
27 May 2026
Chapter 1: What were the initial reactions to the Blues' victory in Origin I?
Ooh.
It's a bit light. I know you reckon.
See if I give a shit bro. This is what it's all about. Yeah. When you, when you win, what do you do dad?
Um, Yeah, have a drink. Yeah.
Chapter 2: How did Kalyn Ponga's send-off change the game's momentum?
It's funny because that trophy you're drinking down off, you threw it off the balcony at halftime. You can see the dings in it.
I got it super glued, and now it's back. It is back. And this is what we do. The series is ours. Halftime is about the 20-minute mark.
Chapter 3: What changes are anticipated for Game II of the State of Origin?
The gold jacket's yours, Nathan.
To the victor, the spoils. There you go. Look at that. What a man.
I hope Laurie's doing the same thing in the sheds right now.
What about Loz at the end there? It couldn't happen to a better bloke. I was explaining to Jack's partner, Jem. We were sitting up there and we had a bit of a conversation over dinner, pre-dinner. Before Origin, as we normally do, sitting around, we had the chicken, the roast potato, sweet potato, broccolini with some corn. It was good dinner. It was.
Chapter 4: What tactics did Billy implement with the Wide 4 strategy?
Let's get to the game. And Jem said to me, Jem said to me, oh, so Matt, did you ever...
Chapter 5: What were the standout performances in the match?
Play State of Origin.
I could tell that hurt you. I could actually tell that hurt you.
No, that didn't hurt me. What hurt me was Trish Garnett. She laughed and pointed at you. She was punishing tonight. She was. She was drinking. She was punishing. But then I was pointing at different things, and I said to her about Laurie Daly, and I said, see that bloke? He's the New South Wales coach. He is the best bloke. I know. I said, you don't meet better guys than Laurie Daly.
I'm so happy for her. Gem's got a really good eye for it. She said, oh, I don't know about that.
Chapter 6: How did the refereeing decisions impact the game's outcome?
And the good thing is that we've won, like, the series is ours now. We've basically won it. And what I want to also plug, before we get into the game, Matthew, our mate v. mate hats in maroon and in blue, they're going live. When this is out, they're going live tonight, Thursday, 6 p.m., Jackson?
6 p.m. Thursday.
Get them. Get them while they're hot in time for State of Origin 2, dog, because this is, I can already tell, that was the greatest game of Origin I've seen in my lifetime, and it's only going to get better. Also, just for our podcast listeners, make sure to leave us one of those nice reviews. We want to get to about 750 reviews and our YouTube subscribers. We're going to get up to about 30,000.
So help us this origin period.
That's our goal this year, 30,000.
Get us up there. I want to buy the end of the origin period. Yeah. But Matthew Johns, I mean, what a rollercoaster of the game. Let's get straight into it. How did you see it?
What was my first statement in the first couple of minutes? Do you remember?
You said it's physical and the refs are just letting this go.
I did. But I also said errors and penalties dictate dominance in state of origin football. And if you look at early... Like, New South Wales performance... I'll just say this generally. New South Wales performance was just riddled with errors, most of which unforced. But... All those errors I've forgotten just rendered pointless by the ultimate error.
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Chapter 7: What strategies did NSW employ to turn the game around?
Queensland's way. New South Wales down. Man... I'll be honest, Queensland's dominance up to then, 20-6 really flattered us, I'll be honest with you. But you know what happened? When he was sent off, and with the score 20-6, Caelan, we had no choice, New South Wales, but to throw off the shackles. Yeah.
And the conservative football, which they imposed upon themselves, and just go after the result. And... Boys, it was more than a numerical advantage. What it was, Queensland suddenly tread water. You know, they tread water, went back. They went off the offensive. They started to try to defend their way to victory and just hang on. And they nearly did.
And we just stole the underdog mentality off us. We played aggressive. We went over them. It's the biggest. And we stole the result.
Chapter 8: What are the implications of Ponga's suspension for future games?
We stole the mentality off them. We stole the result. It's the biggest turnaround. In origin history, I'm not talking about points. I'm talking about momentum and I'm talking about attitude and mentality.
I think it nearly is the biggest comeback in state of origin history as well, I believe. I think it was for the Blues, yeah. Yeah, for the Blues, which is impressive. Yeah, I thought they were going to hang on. Before we get it, talk about some of the big moments in the games, individual's performances, potentially what happens next day of game two. Can we just have an opinion?
Because I know a few people have had their opinion on whether the KP sin bin was a sin bin or whether it should have been 10 in the bin. How did you see it?
I thought it was a sin bin. Yeah. On the way of the game. is adjudicated. There's certain interpretations. I'm sorry. Club football is different to origin football in the way it's refereed, apart from, I think, foul play. Yeah. Right out. And we saw Joseph Swalei sent off two years ago.
First five minutes, yeah.
First five minutes. It was probably a more dramatic tackle on Reece Walsh than it was on Tolu. But in my opinion, it was still a send-off.
Yeah, I go.
It was a shoulder to the head. And although, as I said, although it was refereed differently, slower rucks, less six against, foul play, it doesn't get refereed any differently.
And I get that. I could see the Queensland argument. They were saying, well, it was like it was a head clash. And you could see that majority of the contact was on the head. But the reality is when you have the shoulder charging action and there was some contact with the shoulder, although most of it and probably the knockout part was the head clash. How it looked didn't look good for Kalen.
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