Queensland skipper Cameron Smith has cranked up the mind games ahead of Wednesday's State of Origin decider by claiming NSW are better off without skipper Paul Gallen.
The Blues' preparations were thrown into turmoil by the loss of Gallen last Friday.
The 31-year-old has been a giant influence for his side since becoming skipper in 2011 and produced one of the great Origin displays in game two that year when he played the full 80 minutes in the front row to help his side to an 18-8 win.
Smith said he was a huge fan of Gallen, who's his vice-captain in the Test side, but believes NSW will be more difficult to beat without him.
"If anything it's probably going to be even harder," said Smith.
"I think you see a lot of teams when they lose a senior player they share the workload.
"They know that they have to play even better to make sure that his loss isn't felt as much as everyone thinks."
"There's no doubt he (Gallen) is a huge loss. He's their captain and he's a guy that it doesn't matter what situation their team is in, he puts his hand up to do plenty of work."
Smith said he called a meeting of his players to warn them of the peril of under-estimating NSW with young guns Aaron Woods and Boyd Cordner in the side.
"He (Gallen) finishes the State of Origin every time he plays with 20-plus carries, he's up around the 30-tackle mark," he said.
"But we've had a bit of a chat about his withdrawal.
"We're not taking that lightly. We don't think they are an easier side to play against because Paul Gallen is out.
"If anything it's probably made them a bit more mobile.
"We knew if Paul Gallen played he wasn't going to be 100 per cent fit, but now they've got Woods and Cordner.
"They are both playing really good football. They're both in form for their respective clubs, so if anything we need to be even more on our game now."
The Maroons have not won in Sydney since 2010 but Smith denied the sell-out home crowd of more than 83,000 would intimidate his side as they look to make it eight straight series wins.
And he said the amount of big-game experience in his team would hold them in good stead to maintain their stranglehold over the Blues.
"We'd love the record at ANZ Stadium to be better, but we've got guys involved in this side that have all won big matches there," he said.
"We've all won State of Origin games there ... a fair few of our side have been involved in grand final teams that have won there.
"We've got three guys that play for the Rabbitohs that play there nearly every week of the season, so it's not a foreign place to us and we have all been successful there before so we just need to take the right attitude into the game.
"We didn't in game one and we got beaten, so we've learnt from that and we know how to approach this one a lot better."
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