Great coach that he is, Craig Bellamy's record poses the question of whether he's a great Origin coach. They're not one and the same thing.

It's impossible to disagree with my BPL colleague Steve Mascord's assertion that Queensland's playing personnel is so superior that NSW have no hope of winning Origin unless the northerners take an early mark. In Cameron Smith, Greg Inglis, Johnathan Thurston, Darren Lockyer and Billy Slater, Queensland have the best five players in the game. In Cooper Cronk and Scott Prince, they've got the second and third best scrum halves. Not much you can do about that.

Or is there? Until recently, what made Origin special was how often the inferior team on paper got up and won. For years, NSW had the best players in the game and no matter how long you studied the program you couldn't see how Queensland could get within 20 points; and instead, it was NSW's all-stars getting whipped. The legend of Origin was built on the underdogs' capacity to surprise.

But those triumphant underdog teams were invariably Queenslanders. As we all know, Origin was made for cane toads.

So why can't NSW summon up a similar spirit? Where Queensland nobodies used to come out breathing fire, NSW's current players go out with a kicked-dog look in their eye. They will try their hearts out, but sooner or later they're going to be beaten. You could see it in the timidity of their game when they got ahead in Origin I, and you could see it when they only recovered their willingness once the match was safely lost.

Origin is a mental thing - totally, like, mental - which brings us back to Bellamy. Origin coaches don't have to be great tacticians or brain surgeons. Mal Meninga's a good Origin coach. So was Fatty Vautin, and Arthur Beetson. None was anywhere near as successful at club level as Bellamy, but Origin is not about a 26-week campaign. It's about going a little bit crazy for three matches, and the coach has to embody that insanity, especially if he's going to lift a group of underdogs above their abilities.

Bellamy has shown little of the required madness. To the contrary, he seems so awed by the natural talents of his Queensland Storm men that he has ensured the selection of NSW teams on the basis of fear. Selecting Brett Kimmorley, Jamie Lyon, Matt Cooper and Timana Tahu in the backs, plus Kurt Gidley at fullback, shows the psyche of a coach whose first priority is to try to stop the opposition scoring, and to stop panic setting in when they do. It's a perfectly good selection strategy if your aim is damage control.

The most frustrating thing about NSW under Bellamy is that they seldom look dangerous. They're solid, they're steady, they're willing, and they can win dead rubbers. But they don't cause a moment of lost sleep up north.

If it were up to me, I'd have players like Michael Jennings, Terry Campese and Mitchell Pearce in there, Jarryd Hayne allowed to do whatever he damn well likes, Josh Dugan on the bench, and a coach with psychotic tendencies, Ricky Stuart maybe, with Tom Raudonikis allowed into the rooms on a short leash and a muzzle. The FOGS do their best, but you need players who are also in denial.

A team of danger men might lose by 30, but a loss is a loss. It doesn't matter how much they lose by, if they're never going to win. You need teams that believe, on their night, they're better. Otherwise we've got a pretty dismal prospect of respectable defeats and a patient wait until Queensland's best reach retirement age. And that's too long.