Kaysa and Pauli were both excellent, although Pauli's ball security let him down at times.
Pritchard was superb in defence, completely dominating the QLD props at times and provided slick service from dummy half. He left the field late in the game with what was reported as a cork above his knee so fingers crossed that is all it is.
Pauli was heavily marked on each carry down the left but made great metres despite the attention. Some good hustle from Pauli in the play-the-ball saw Mata'utia score on the following play in the second half.
Folau was overly aggressive, earning a stint in the bin for a punch. He scored a good try but also struggled to contain Jake Mamo, who burnt him with pure speed throughout the game. He looked plenty strong out there, breaking quite a few tackles but struggled with both the fluency of the NSW left-edge attack and the lack of rhythm from his own team.
Ryan Matterson was unfortunately wasted from the bench. With Mitchell Moses calling the shots on Matterson's preferred left-edge he was relegated to a simpler role in the middle. He made a couple of good runs in his limited minutes but otherwise went unnoticed in a dominant NSW pack. Things might have been different had Matterson started on the left-edge but given just how damn good he has played for us in 2014 I'm not too fussed that he had a quiet night for NSW.
As for the captaincy issue (I use issue loosely), Kaysa has been the regular captain of our NYC team in the past but has struggled to stay on the field in 2014. He has good leadership credentials and that is reflected in his selection as the captain of NSW.
Matterson has not only grown tremendously this year but he has played eighty minutes in nearly every game thus far. I'm not sure how things will play out going forwards between the two but Matterson was a logical pick for the (c) given the regular unavailability of Kaysa.
