NSW Blues star Angus Crichton suffered a health scare in the opening three minutes of State of Origin III, forced off for a head injury assessment.
The 23-year-old grabbed at his neck after taking a shot to the head as he attempted to tackle Queensland’s Reece Walsh.
Crichton was immediately ruled to have displayed Category 2 symptoms and taken off the field to be checked over.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today 
He was seen shaking his head as Mitch Barnett joined the action in his place.
Crichton passed his HIA and quickly replaced Barnett to return to what was a fiery but scoreless start to the decider.
Meanwhile, all three of Queensland’s drastic late changes were reversed within the first 25 minutes as both teams kept up an incredible pace.
Jeremiah Nanai, Lindsay Collins and Ben Hunt were dropped in the hour before kick-off but came off the bench for Felise Kaufusi, Moeaki Fotuaika and Harry Grant respectively in the first half.
The loss of Crichton for the remainder of the night would have reversed the situation from the Origin opener.
Queensland lost Walsh less than 10 minutes into the match in Sydney when he was concussed in a heavy hit from Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii.
Owing to a mandatory stand-down period and the draw, Walsh did not play a single NRL game until after returning for Origin II.
Walsh has received help for Origin III in the form of livewire Kalyn Ponga in the No.17 jumper.
“(Ponga) is trained in multiple positions on the field, and what a luxury to have Kalyn Ponga sitting on the bench where you can put him on anywhere you want,” Maroons coach Billy Slater said.
“He’ll find himself on the field at some stage playing his role for the team, but he’ll be playing his role as Kalyn Ponga. We want to see the best Kalyn Ponga out there as possible.”
Ponga starred off the bench in his Origin debut in 2018 when Slater was the starting fullback.
The young gun had to wait until 2022 to play every game in the No.1 jumper but has since been usurped by Walsh.
Slater said the prospect of having both players on the field at the same time is mind-boggling.
“They have paved their own way and both of those guys have been involved in the last couple of years,” the coach said.
“Kalyn was extremely influential in 2022 and Reece has been over the last couple of years. I said at the start of the year that I was sure that at some stage they would love to be teammates, and now they are teammates.”
– with AAP
