The story of State of Origin so far has been the injuries in the NSW camp, but a scare has gone through the Queensland camp with Cameron Munster limping out of Melbourne’s Magic Round clash with Parramatta with a reoccurrence of the groin injury that kept him out earlier in the season.
Munster is set for scans to determine the extent of the injury, with both Storm coach Craig Bellamy and Maroons counterpart Billy Slater waiting anxiously for results.
The Storm star missed several weeks earlier in the season with a groin complaint and has been open that it is far from completely healed, admitting that he has been playing through the injury.
The Maroons five eighth was seen writhing in pain towards the end of the first half with what appeared to be spasms from his upper leg.
He appeared to overextend his groin attempting to fight for the ball on the ground and, shortly afterwards, dropped to the turf in obvious discomfort. Trainers attended and Munster limped out.
For Slater and the Maroons, it will be a major blow if Munster is down again.
They have been largely unscathed at a time when NSW players are dropping like flies, with only Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, who did his ACL very early in the year, and Kalyn Ponga, who may not have featured anyway, missing.
Meanwhile the Blues have lost walk-up starters in Nathan Cleary, Tom Trbojevic and Cameron Murray as well as incumbent centre Bradman Best and halfback option Mitchell Moses ahead of Michael Maguire’s first selection.
The Storm can ill afford to lose Munster, too. They are already without Ryan Papenhuyzen and Jahrome Hughes from their spine.