It was like picnicking on the slopes of a smouldering volcano. Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy and I joined the NSW team for a convivial, sober dinner on Monday night at a restaurant only 200 metres from the MCG, in a pre-State of Origin game atmosphere shrouded in smoke and threatening flame.

The “glass houses” comment by Blues coach Michael Maguire – his perception of Queensland hypocrisy in their aggrieved reaction to the high tackle on their fullback Reece Walsh in the first Origin match – has produced clouds of vapour but no real fire.

Maguire and Queensland coach Billy Slater spent a half-decade at the Storm........

© The Sydney Morning Herald