New South Wales too strong in Under 20 game

It was a strong performance across the board for the young New South Wales side, who had a number of stars step up to help claim the win, including hooker Sam Verrills, centre Stephen Critchon and five-eighth Matt Burton who claimed player of the match honours.

Queensland coaches Paul Dyer and Scott Price would have been disappointed with the way their side were unable to capitalise on some good ball chances and instead, turned the ball over for New South Wales to score the first points.

Burton was the first to score when he chased through on his own grubber kick through the line that the Queensland backs were unable to clean up.

However, the visitors were on the board soon after thanks to fullback Ronaldo Mulitalo, one of Queensland's best on the night, who produced something out of nothing and ran down the sideline to score.

However, in a theme of the night, Queensland continually gave up penalties to gift New South Wales opportunities with the ball. 

They crossed twice more before the end of the half, with Burton getting his second.

Their final try of the half came against the run of play, with Queensland having been on the attack with just over five minutes to go, after Tanah Boyd came on at hooker and produced a fantastic 40/20 kick to gain field possession.

However, Queensland were unable to convert that opportunity. 

Instead, a Verrills kick was allowed to dribble into the in-goal and a good chase from Teig Wilton saw him go over to score in the left corner with just under two minutes to go until halftime.

NSW then made a mistake with 41 seconds to go coming out of their own half and Queensland had a scrum 20m out from their attacking line.

As the buzzer sounded, Queensland got a penalty and Braydon Trindall's shot at goal hit the post and bounced into Queensland hands, but they not able to do anything with it and went into halftime trailing 16-4. 

Queensland needed to reset to start the second half, but it seemed like the score pressure got to them as they let NSW rattle them in defence.

Discipline was again an issue and put them on the back foot - while an injury to skipper Cory Paix had him off the field in the opening minutes of the second half in a telling blow.

Queensland let in three second half tries which took them out of the game; but they did try until the end of the match, with Murray Taulagi rewarded for a strong overall performance with a try in the 67th minute.

Player of the match: Matt Burton (New South Wales)