Rugby League: Champions ▾

Attendance: 28,222

This was a genuinely depleted Origin talent pool: 1997 fell during the Super League war, and players contracted to Super League-aligned clubs (Sailor, Tallis, Lazarus, Clyde, Kevin Walters, Langer, Daley, Stuart among them) were ruled ineligible for this ARL-administered series, playing a separate Super League Tri-series instead -- the Origin format itself (standard Games I-III) was unaffected. Wikipedia's own scoreline for this game (10-4) does not reconcile against any combination of listed scorers and is treated as an error; rugbyleagueproject.org's reconciling 8-6 is used instead. Exact try-scoring minutes not confirmed for this game.

Scorers

New South Wales	Tries: McGregor Goals: Johns (1/2); Wishart (1/1)
Queensland	Tries: Lam Goals: Bartrim (1/1)

Teams

New South Wales			Queensland
1	Tim Brasher	Fullback	Robbie O'Davis	1
2	Rod Wishart	Wing	Brett Dallas	2
3	Terry Hill	Centre	Matt Sing	3
4	Paul McGregor	Centre	Mark Coyne	4
5	Jamie Ainscough	Wing	Danny Moore	5
6	Jim Dymock	Five-eighth	Ben Ikin	6
7	Geoff Toovey	Halfback	Adrian Lam	7
8	Paul Harragon	Prop	Neil Tierney	8
9	Andrew Johns	Hooker	Jamie Goddard	9
10	Mark Carroll	Prop	Craig Smith	10
11	Steve Menzies	Second Row	Gary Larson	11
12	Adam Muir	Second Row	Billy Moore	12
13	Nik Kosef	Lock	Wayne Bartrim	13
Substitutes
14	David Fairleigh		Jason Smith	14
15	Dean Pay		Jeremy Schloss	15
16	John Simon		Tony Hearn	16
17	Ken McGuinness		Stuart Kelly	17
Tom Raudonikis		Coach	Paul Vautin

Player of the Match

Geoff Toovey (New South Wales)

Match officials

Referee

Kelvin Jeffes

Data last verified: 11 August 2026.

All games, 1997 State of Origin · Game 2 →

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