AS A State of Origin trial, the Good Friday match between the Roosters and Broncos couldn't have been better. While the number of play-the-balls was only 180, slightly above NRL average but below the frenetic pace of Origin football, the round-two match set a season-high record for missed tackles - the Roosters with 44 and and the Broncos with 54.

While missed tackles may indicate a lack of urgency in defence, they can also reflect fury in attack. There was certainly no miss in a tackle in the 17th minute, with the score at 6-6 and a scrum set on the halfway line.

The ball sped left to the Roosters' back line where five-eighth Braith Anasta suddenly found himself confronted by the looming, fearsome, giant-jawed Broncos back-rower Tonie Carroll. Outside Carroll was Broncos five-eighth and captain Darren Lockyer but inside him was fullback Karmichael Hunt.

Anasta hastily stepped inside Carroll but stumbled, just as Hunt moved in to tackle him.

The point of Hunt's left shoulder struck Anasta on the nose, breaking it and forcing him from the field, while Hunt was placed on report.

He was subsequently cleared by the NRL judiciary, which ruled it an accident, although Hunt has form for timing his tackle to crunch falling ball carriers.

The Broncos summoned a time-and-motion expert to defend Hunt but the reality is a coach doesn't position a powerful fullback as first defender at a scrum, a terrifying back-rower outside him and the regular five-eighth even further out, unless he wants the opposition No.6 monstered.

Anyway, the Queensland selectors would have liked what they saw. It was an old-fashioned five-eighth-on-five-eighth tackle, given the bizarre formations we see at scrums these days, with fullbacks packing in as lock and front-rowers taking the first pass from the scrum base. Queensland have always liked big five-eighths, such as Wally Lewis and Peter Jackson, and the sting of Hunt's tackle indicated dormant power in his 90-kilogram frame.

Hunt's tackle on Anasta was also bad news for Titans halfback Scott Prince, who had been promoted as a possible Queensland five-eighth. By not pairing half Johnathan Thurston with Prince, it's one less spot for NSW to aim their ball carriers.

Furthermore, Hunt positions himself often as second receiver with the Broncos, meaning he plays the role of five-eighth in attack, anyway. So Queensland had their back-up five-eighth to Lockyer, who was subsequently injured, while the NSW selectors may have put a line through Anasta. If so, it was harsh treatment.

Nine out of 10 players would avoid a collision with Carroll and, in any case, Anasta returned for the second half.

NSW coach Craig Bellamy is a fan of Anasta's long-kicking game, an essential component in Origin football, in which so much effort is expended carrying the the ball away from the try line.

Remember the final moments of the 2006 series when Queensland kicked downfield at Melbourne's Telstra Dome? The NSW dummy-half, Brett Hodgson, didn't connect with a wild pass, Lockyer scooped it up and the Maroons won the series.

Lockyer's absence from the team means Queensland also lack a kicking game, other than the left-footers from dummy-half of hooker Cam Smith, a skill the Blues could never match anyway.

Anasta at five-eighth and Greg Bird at lock would have been Bellamy's preferred option because the premiership-winning coach also knows the Blues have an advantage over Queensland in wide-running, tackle-breaking back-rowers.

By choosing Bird as the Blues five-eighth, the selectors have reduced NSW's back-rower thrust on the edges. Still, Bird versus Hunt is a morsel for the feast of football ahead. It's not classic five-eighth versus five-eighth but footballer against footballer.

Both have football pedigrees, with Hunt selected for the Broncos while at school and Bird for the Junior Kangaroos.

To be chosen as one of the best under-19 players two years in a row in a team that includes many NRL players, at five-eighth - still a critical position in junior football - and made captain is a rare honour.

Bird also played five-eighth for NSW in last year's Origin dead rubber, when the Blues were victorious in Brisbane, and backed up for Australia in the same position in the Centenary Test win.

He's tough too, meaning if Hunt hits him, he'll give double back.

For NSW, it's a case of a Bird in the hand is worth two on the mush.