Blues prop Andrew Fifita says he won't be forgetting about the sledging he copped from Maroons players after full time in the Blues' 18-16 Origin Two loss on Wednesday night and will use it as motivation going into the decider
Fifita, whose Game Two was noticeably quieter than his Game One pyrotechnics, also said he has no issue with the Maroons putting extra effort into keeping him quiet.
Their tactic of swamping him opened up chances for his fellow forwards and earned the Blues a couple of penalties – the only problem was how his team failed to manage the game in the second half, he said.
"Yeah I did feel it (them putting extra attention on me) to be honest," Fifita said after the game.
"They did their research. But in saying that they gave away a penalty on me on their line, after that set we ended up going up and scoring."
There were passages early in the game where extra Maroons forwards followed him which opened up extra chances for the likes of Aaron Woods and Josh Jackson to start the game strongly, according to Fifita.
"It's not a one man team here, not a two-man team. There's 16 other blokes beside myself here. I thought our bench did a good job, we started the game well. We just let it slip," he added.
Fifita came in for extra attention from Maroons lock Josh McGuire, who dived at Fifita's legs in a tackle late in the contest and gave the Sharks big man a few verbals on fulltime as well.
"I laughed at it," Fifita smiled of the special treatment.
"I knew they were going to come at me. In any team, if you're one of the main players they are going to try and take you out of the game. In saying that, he can dive at the leg all he wants. They're only little but they aren't breaking anything."
The extra spite would only give the Blues more motivation to go up to Suncorp and claim the series on Queensland's territory, according to Fifita.
"There would be nothing better than us going up there and taking out the series on Queensland soil… I'm a bit bitter about it. They can carry on all they want at the end of the game there. It's one of those things, we will memory-bank it and go into Game Three ready," he said.
"It was a big wake up call for us. Hopefully we go up there for Game Three and prepare well and get the job done in their backyard."
This article first appeared on NRL.com
