YOU might best remember Origin III for Billy Slater's heroic 65th minute tackle on Anthony Watmough.

I'll remember it for Paul Gallen motioning to David Shillington and telling the referees: "I'm going to knock that (expletive's) head off".

You might like to think of Michael Ennis conceding a crucial penalty with the game in the balance when you reflect this morning on the game of interstate rugby league which was played in the Homebush Bay district on Wednesday evening. I'll think of Phil Gould saying about  Sam Thaiday "that's not smart. If anything, it's cowardly".

And when you are reliving Israel Folau taking a timely intercept in his last representative game, I am checking my notes to make sure Petero Civoniceva really did say to Shayne Hayne "Some of these calls mate, are you sure it's not a square up?"

That's because I'm a journalist and those three quotes fascinate and intrigue me.

As I sit here - again - in the wee hours of the morning at an empty stadium, the question which hangs in the air like all good metaphorical fogs in stories like this is: is Origin a contest again? Or did the Washington Generals just accidentally run the Harlem Globetrotters close?

I cannot find my answer in the football I saw.

The closeness of the scores at halftime - like those at full-time in Origin I - was more or less a fluke. The Blues knocked on on the second tackle of the match, sent a kick-off out on the full and failed to find touch from a penalty - but only trailed by seven.

But from the 47th minute until Ennis' untimely penalty for retaliating when Nate Myles stuck his forearm in his face 26 minutes later, it is tempting to believe NSW actually competed with Queensland.

No, really.

It is indeed possible that Queensland was throwing its best at the Blues and Craig Bellamy's mob actually had the wherewithal and momentum to repel them.

But possibilities and suspicions prove nothing. C***s, cowards and square-ups, on the other hand, indicate the presence of something primal and untamed during Origin III.

They make Origin I 2011 compulsive viewing regardless of Queensland's five series wins in a row.

And that's all we needed out of Wednesday night, really.