The Blues played footy for a couple of bursts in the first half on Wednesday. Footy resulted in a brilliant try to Josh Morris and a clever one to Beau Scott. On the Queensland side there were occasional outbreaks of footy but, as Mal said, mostly they beat NSW at their own game.

What exactly is that game? It seems to be something similar to that employed in Flanders a century ago: field position, attrition, the hope that the opponent will eventually break. Raw courage aplenty, but not much footy.

By the standards of "the modern game", it has to be said that Origin I was a coach's dream. The Blues' completion rate was 91 per cent, the Maroons' 88 per cent. NSW had their line broken three times, Queensland twice. League coaches drool at such immaculate football. No wonder Laurie Daley was so proud of his men. They hit the ball up, they tackled. They didn't pass the ball or drop it. Mitchell Pearce kicked the ball a hell of a long way (never mind that they all went down Billy Slater's throat – look at the yardage!). The operation was a complete success, never mind that the patient didn't make it through.

But do completions really signify high-quality rugby league? A high completion rate may also mean that nobody has been allowed to pass the ball. If you want to see high-completion football, you could just watch Cronulla on any given weekend.

Eventually, you have to wonder at the long-term impact of such risk-averse thinking (I was about to say "football") on the code's health. Origin pulls in rugby league tourists, the occasionals drawn by the hype and the spectacle and the sheer hubris of an event that can call itself "Sport's Greatest Rivalry". Up to a point, the magnificence of Origin can obscure the fact that there's very little footy actually being played out there. But only up to a point. Eventually – a bit like most Wallabies Tests and FIFA World Cup finals – a critical mass of people are going to say, "Gee, it was all a big deal, but it was pretty terrible". As if the whole thing is modelled on the Italian soccer team: so much skill, none of it on display. Look at Justin Hodges the other night. Hodges ran the ball 195 metres on Wednesday. A showcase for his sublime gifts? No, just a lot of dummy-half grafting.

Most sports go through these cycles, where winning starts to mean so much that it inhibits all risk. Club rugby league went through it in the mid-1980s, cricket had a couple of decades of it in the 1950s and 1960s, and there was a period in the NFL in the early 2000s when the Baltimore Ravens won championships through a strategy of having the ball as little as possible and smashing opponents with defence. Once they had the ball, the Ravens were so hapless that their best ploy was to give it away.

Origin has been in that phase for a few years now. (And lest you think this is sour grapes, the 2014 Origin, while great theatre, was dire in terms of footy). Origin has been on this risk-minimisation path for quite a while. In fact, I wasn't sure if I was watching Origin 2015 the other night or a replay. NSW bashed and barged, but Queensland were smarter in the end. Again. In the battle between tired and stupid, the Queenslanders could paraphrase W.C. Fields: "Tomorrow morning, I won't still be tired, but you'll still be dumb." There shouldn't have been player ratings after that match, there should have been HSC class allocations: Cooper Cronk and Cameron Smith 4-unit, Mitchell Pearce and Robbie Farah vegie maths. Queensland won with brains, again.

Experience counted. It counts here too, from the vantage point of one who has never set foot on an Origin field. But I bet I've watched more Origins sitting on my arse in front of the TV frustrated out of my brain by one-out hit-ups and field position metre-eaters than Mal and Loz. What a travesty that two men who played so much dazzling and effective footy on the biggest stages are the figureheads for the current product.

For better or worse, Origin is league's outreach project, when it projects itself to its widest audience. Unlike a grand final, nearly all fans really care who wins Origin. So for league's sake, can somebody please play some footy in Melbourne? Can someone tell the coaches that a 100 per cent completion rate is not the Holy Grail but a recipe for dullness? Will the NRL fans have to apologise again to their puzzled southern friends: "Yeah, it was a grind, but league is really great when they play footy"? There will be tens of thousands of league tourists at the MCG in two weeks, and if they see a repeat of Origin I, the game is going to lose a million or so potential fans in one night. NSW and Queensland must do something to solve the contradiction in Origin: if these are the best players in the game, can't they be trusted to play some footy?