Game 1 of the 2022 State of Origin series kicks off on Wednesday night, and is set to be a cracker.
The battle between the NSW Blues and QLD Maroons never seems to disappoint... unless it's 2021 and you're a Queenslander. Nevertheless, there is a special kind of excitement that comes with the greatest rivalry in Australian sport.
We have Billy Slater up against Brad Fittler in the coaches box, Junior Paulo and Payne Haas facing off against Tino Fa'asuamaleaui and Josh Papalii and that isn't even the best of the match-ups.
While every game has its features whether it's a decider in Game 3 or a pivotal Game 2, there is a special electricity that comes with the unknown of the first game in a series.
There have been some fantastic games in the 42 years the series has been running. Most of the greats, like James Tedesco scoring in the final seconds of 2019's Game 3, come in series-winning games, but what about series openers?
Here are ten of the greatest Game 1s in State of Origin History.
Allan Langer vs Peter Sterling. Gary Belcher vs Garry Jack. Brett Kenny vs Wally Lewis.
The names in this match are ludicrous and the ensuing game lived up to the players in it. As much as it seems ridiculous now, there were doubters that Langer was up for this level of the game.
Any doubts were quickly dismissed.
The game was set as Wally Lewis got the game started with a kick to Sterling who was promptly smashed in a hard tackle.
Sterling got up, but the Maroons' defence showed they weren't there to mess around. The Blues quickly gave a penalty away in their first defensive set, and the Maroons were on the attack.
While the tackles were tough, the game quickly started to open up and the attacks of each team flowed. The Maroons opened the scoring with a penalty kick. Not too long later, the NSW Blues went in for the first try of the game.
NSW quickly went on with it, coming out to a 16-6 lead. Unfortunately, Queensland second halves have been a thing since the eighties. Of course, it was soon 16-all.
It is the next play that will forever be in the dreams of Blues fans and nightmares of Maroons. While it was controversial, I don't think there is any doubt it was correct.
As the Blues made a break down the sideline and passed it back in-field, the Maroons almost intercepted it, leaving the ball bouncing along the ground. As the ball raced towards the dead-ball line between a mix of arms and legs, Andrew Ettingshausen got there first and slammed the ball down.
With no 'bunker' or video ref, Mick Stone, living up to his family name, made the decision and awarded the try in front of a manic Queensland crowd.
While it is near number one on the list of worst memories as a NSW Blues fan, there is no doubting the excellence that is the first game of the 2005 series.
Ending in heartbreak as Matt Bowen races away to score, the entire game is a classic.
Queensland jumped out to a 19-nil lead with only 30 minutes to play, but a try to Luke Rooney in the 52nd minute reinvigorated the Blues to storm to victory. Mark Gasnier followed suit less than ten minutes later, while Craig Fitzgibbon found his way to the line with 13 minutes to play.
Off a beautiful backline spread from Trent Barrett to Mark Gasnier, Matt King raced down the sideline before sky-hooking the ball back inside to Danny Buderus. The NSW Blues captain scored his first try as the Blues took the lead 20-19.
Leading by one point with a handful of minutes to play, the Blues gave a penalty away through Luke Bailey and Darren Lockyer elected to take the kick to win. While he missed, the Maroons quickly made their way back up the field and Thurston slotted the field goal to send it to overtime.
After a ferocious eighty minutes, with each and every player gasping for breath, the Blues had the advantage. While a poor kick from Trent Barrett gave the maroons field position, they quickly wasted it.
Unfortunately for NSW Fans and Brett Kimmorley, it was a desperate and lazy pass that was the difference.
Firing a ball out to Matt King, it was Matt Bowen who plucked it out of the air and won the game for Queensland in the 84th minute.
While there may be better games, there is no bigger controversy. Well... maybe no more enjoyable controversy from a NSW perspective.
The game wasn't too bad either.
As Ryan Girdler cut through the defence to score in the corner, making it 16-all once he missed the conversion, it was what happened between the try and the conversion that matters.
Furious with a supposed knock-on earlier in the match, Gordon Tallis couldn't hold back from offering Referee Bill Harrigan his opinion on his performance.
For his initial outburst, Tallis was sent to the sin bin, which would have meant he missed the end of the match. It was his next comment that got him sent.
"You're off."
"You're a fu***** cheat."
It's something no fan will ever forget, whether you look back on it with rage or rapture. Despite the Maroons captain, Adrian Lam desperately pleading his case, Harrigan wasn't having it.
It only took the NSW Blues five minutes to score the game-winning try against the 12-man Maroons as David Peachey went over in the corner in his Origin debut.
Another come-from-behind victory for the QLD Maroons... Why am I writing this?
While it is marred by yet another Queensland victory, there is no doubting the elite level this game was played at.
While their first try to Billy Slater was disallowed, the Maroons came ready to play. Almost exactly five minutes later, it was Cooper Cronk and his right-foot step that opened the scoring.
It didn't take too long for the Blues to make it a try each as James Tamou rampaged through the middle before sneaking an offload to Josh Dugan, who then put in a perfect kick to the flying Josh Morris who finished a great try.
Five minutes later, the Blues were in again as Beau Scott muscled his way to the line, making it 10-6 to NSW at halftime.
That joy was short lived however as Will Chambers scored his first Origin try in the 54th minute and Thurston knocked it over from the sideline to even the score.
The two teams wrestled for nearly twenty minutes as they each tried to gain the advantage but it was the Maroons who won out.
Cooper Cronk slotted a field goal from 20m out to put them ahead by one with six minutes left and their almost impregnable defence did the rest.
As a NSW Blues fan, Game 1s don't get any better than this.
The first State of Origin match played under 'Golden Point' rule, it's funny they were very much needed as the NSW Blues slotted a field goal to win the match in the 85th minute.
Down 8-4 with only twenty minutes left, it was Scott Prince who stood up for the Maroons. Cutting the NSW defence with a lovely left foot step and then throwing a soaring pass out to Brent Tate on the edge, it was looking like yet another Queensland comeback.
Nonetheless, it remained 8-8 when, in the 78th minute, it looked like Craig Gower would be the NSW Hero, with a clean look at a field goal less than twenty metres out. As the ball slipped out of his grasp, it looked like Game One might have too.
By now NSW had learnt you have to take every chance if you want to beat the Maroons.
When Billy Slater forced a drop-out and then readied himself for a drop kick from 35 metres out, it looked like a Blues fan's worst nightmare. However, their captain Danny Buderus rushed out of the line, charged the ball down and sent the game to Golden Point.
Just over two minutes later, it was Buderus who fired the ball back to Shaun Timmins, just inside the 40m line, who fired the ball between the posts.
Only scoring one try each with a goal being the difference, this game is old-school State of Origin in the flesh.
Try-less through three quarters of the match, it was a tough and ugly affair. Unsurprisingly, it was the big man on the edge, Mal Meninga, who scored the first try of the match, barreling his way through Greg Alexander and Andrew Ettingshausen to score.
With only minutes left in the match, it was Alexander who fired a beautiful pass out to Laurie Daley in the centres. Daley grubbered for himself and scored in the corner.
The Blues coach had named Michael O'Connor for the kicking duties over Alexander, despite O'Connor not being the Manly Sea Eagles first-choice kicker, and only having kicked two goals in 1991.
This is a decision that would prove costly as the clock wound down to zero.
As O'Connor's sideline conversion of Daley's try sailed to the right of the post, the game was all-but over.
Unthinkably, the Maroons restart from Meninga went out on the full, providing the Blues with a penalty, a kick for goal from 50m out and their hearts in their throats.
This time, it was Alexander who took the kick.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on which side you sit on, the kick never looked like going in. Queensland win.
This one is yet another last-minute victory by the QLD Maroons. They seem to be kind of good when the game is on the line.
Nothing marks the (frustrating) heart of the QLD Maroons more than Martin Lang chasing down Rod Wishardt along with Matt Singh. While Steve Menzies would go on to score that set, making it 23-18, it is efforts like that that would see the Maroons come out on top.
When Steve Renouf knocked the ball on with two-and-a-half minutes left, the game looked all but over. As usual with the Maroons, that wasn't the case.
On the first tackle of the set with 90 seconds left, Kevin Walters kicks downfield and, of course, it's Ben Ikin who beats three Blues players to the ball.
"Queensland - they will not lie down" - Ray Warren
It was Tony Carroll who scored after a great piece of play from Darren Smith and Walters.
The siren went before Darren Lockyer took the kick but only five metres to the right of the posts, the game was decided long before that.
As much as NSW Blues fans hate to admit it, there is something different about Queensland come Origin time.
No matter how passionate the Blues and NSW may be, for want of a better word, Queenslanders are just different.
Nothing epitomises that more than the 1995 State of Origin series, and nothing displays their grit and want-to-win at any cost than game one.
Marked by the screams of 'Queenslander' by Billy Moore as the team walked out, the 1995 Qld Maroons were underdogs of the highest regard.
With commentator-turned coach Paul Vautin coaching his first game and the team being selected from an extremely limited pool with players in the Super League being ineligible.
Queenslanders and the 'underdog' label go together like cookies and cream.
The first try-less State of Origin game in history, the less-talented Queensland dragged the Blues through the mud.
A kick for goal off the back of a high-tackle penalty against Paul Harrigan would prove crucial as the QLD Maroons came out on top of the NSW Blues 2-0.
A last second dash for the try-line by the Blues was on the cards, but they were once again turned away by the desperate Queensland Defence.
Against all odds, the Maroons out-muscled and out-hustled the Blues into one of the grittiest victories in history. How annoying.
If there is one game that gets close to the Shaun Timmins match in the eyes of Blues fans, it's this one. Not so much for the game or the moment itself, but the narrative behind it.
Brett Finch wasn't the first-choice halfback. He wasn't the second-choice halfback. He wasn't even the second-choice replacement for when the second-choice halfback got injured. Luckily for Finch, a late SOS to the retired Andrew Johns went unanswered. Finch was the last option.
Still hungover from the night before as he trained with the team on the day of the game, it's likely everyone was nervous about how he'd go. Everyone but himself.
"For situations like that, I was sort of your man for that because I'd take it on. Those sorts of situations didn't faze me.
"With someone else, they might need the full week in camp, where I sort of didn't," Finch told Wide World of Sports.
A rough-and-tumble affair, it was a very forward-heavy match, like most State of Origin games.
It was Mark Gasnier with a beautiful pickup, tackle break and offload to Matt King that saw the first try, with Matt King passing it into Brett Finch, who went over in the corner.
Matt King went over himself off the back of a great pass from Gasnier and the Blues were out to an eight-point lead. Not too long later and Willie Mason pulverised the Queensland defence, pin-balling defenders as he made his way to the try-line.
Leading 14-0, it was a Brett Hodges one-on-one strip on Eric Grothe Jr., leading to an exchange of blows that flipped the momentum. Less than a minute later, a young Greg Inglis scored on the wing.
As they are known to do, the QueenslandMaroons made their way back into the game, capping it off with a try to Ian Bell in the right corner, tying the game in the 75th minute.
Luckily, the man wearing 20 who, 24hrs earlier was drinking beers at the pub, was cool as a cucumber.
"I was pretty confident when the ball was coming to me and when I hit it, I knew I'd struck it well. It's like when you hear a six at the cricket, just that middle of the bat."
"That's not a try, that's a miracle!"
Marked by the incredible commentary from Ray Warren, this game has one of the greatest endings to a game in history.
Up by only two points with fifteen to play, the Blues thought they'd put it to bed when they scored in the 68th minute to make it 12-4. Queensland had other plans.
As Willie Carne scored and Mal Meninga kicked the goal to make it 12-10, there was only a minute left to play.
There isn't much to say that wasn't said by Ray Warren in one of his best performances.
While it might send shivers down the spines of NSW Blues fans, it's what Queenslanders put on to keep the nightmares away.
It is, undoubtedly, one of the best State of Origin matches in history.
"Walters onward. Carne joins in, floats the pass for Renouf, Renouf down the touchline, beats one, gets it in-field.
Hancock gets it on. Queensland are coming back! Darren Smith for Langer, Langer gets it away.
Here's the big fella! gets the pass on. Coyne! Coyne! Goes for the corner and gets the try! Queensland! It's a miracle performance!"