It was a game that deserved to be played on a stage, so dramatic were the shifts of play, moments of magic and meltdown, desperate theatrics, two all in conflagrations and blood feuds.

No more than two points separated the teams for just under an hour when a combination of exhaustion and Queensland blindside brilliance became the difference when Maroons half Johnathan Thurston put Billy Slater over the line for a 16-10 victory and their third straight series win.

The rival coaches may have instructed their teams to play safety-first tactics for the first act - one out running; win the territorial battle; extract an error from the opposition; kick to the corners; force a repeat set; start as many sets as possible at the other end of the field.

But that's not how it was played. In a game where there were so many violent twists of fortune, it was impossible to play conservatively, and the natural, competitive instincts of the players came to the fore, including a second-minute punch-up when Queensland's Petero Civoniceva drove his forearm into the throat of NSW's Ben Cross.

There were three tries by quarter time, two of them involving a Melbourne player exploiting his clubmate on the other team.

Queensland winger Israel Folau leapt, as if spring-loaded, high above his Storm teammate Anthony Quinn, for the Maroons' second try, having scored his first in similar fashion.

If it wasn't enough for the Storm to cannibalise each other for tries, NSW second rower Ryan Hoffman attempted to strike his Melbourne (and Queensland) captain Cam Smith with a forearm, prompting referee Tony Archer to say he would have been sent off if he'd connected. Maybe all the vitriol and venom in the bowels of the stadium before the match fuelled the exciting, if erratic, early encounters.

The Maroons fired off an official protest and threatened not to come out as a result of not being informed of one of NSW's changes to the starting line up - benchman Kurt Gidley for fullback Brett Stewart.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took the stadium lift to the players' tunnel before the match but visited the Queensland room only, shunning the Blues, who were informed of his visit to the enemy. Rudd, in town for today's Council of Australian Governments meeting, was accompanied to the Homebush Bay stadium by five premiers, bar Victoria's John Brumby, and their treasurers, plus federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan and a few territory and sports ministers.

It was perhaps the biggest attendance of political heavies at a football match in Australia but the game on the field would have resonated more with another famous cast in the VIP box: actors in the drama Underbelly.

The stars of the Channel Nine series would have identified with the blood feuds as the intensity of the Storm encounters transported onlookers back to the opening State of Origin game, when opposing Parramatta and St George teammates took to each other.

Rudd and his predecessor, John Howard, were together in the same room for the first time since last year's federal election. It's not known what pleasantries they exchanged but they would have been more cordial than the verbal volleys across the early rucks.

The weather gods favoured Queensland, with the usual slippery surface of ANZ Stadium as dry and flat as a salt pan. Queensland's slick backs like a dry ball, and NSW prefer a dummy-half-oriented game where they can wrong-foot the big Maroons defenders.

The Blues had studied the weather map and knew there was no possibility of rain, but a westerly wind and a relative humidity of 33 per cent meant there was no dew, either. Queensland therefore got the surface they wanted, while NSW did not.

However, the Blues persisted with their dummy-half running, and it paid dividends with giant gains around the ruck, particularly via the involvement of Gidley as a supplement to the probes of NSW captain Danny Buderus.

The Newcastle pair played with the persistence of roofers with nail guns, punching holes in Queensland around the ruck.

It may be the computer age, with players receiving game plans via emails with video attachments but last night's decider resembled a old typewriter at edition time.

The game darted, feinted, shifted back and forth like a typewriter carriage, just like Origin games of old.