It was rumoured that this ultimately cost him a place in the Australian team for the first Ashes test with NSW goalkicking winger Ross Conlon winning a spot on the wing.

Game II was played on a cold and wet night that saw almost 30,000 cram into the Sydney Cricket Ground, signalling that the New South Wales public had finally embraced the Origin concept.

Blues prop Steve Roach triggered an all-in brawl in the second tackle of the match with players trading blows for more than a minute afterwards in three separate melees.

So bad were conditions, Blues second-rower Noel Cleal attempted a line drop out only for the ball to stick in the gluey mud and trickle a metre forward.

In a moment of good fortune for the Maroons the ball struck the cross-bar and Dowling who had been following through, took an extraordinary catch on his finger tips centimetres from the rain soaked ground and plunged across the line in a splash of mud to score and give Queensland an 8–0 lead.

With the series decided in Sydney, game III at Lang Park became a dead-rubber but was significant for the selection of Canterbury Bulldogs half-back Steve Mortimer as captain of New South Wales for the first time after Ray Price had elected to stand down from representative football following the third Ashes Test.