Queensland captain Daly Cherry-Evans protested with Klein on the field at the time of Kaufusi’s sin-bin, which came moments before NSW took a half-time lead through Brian To’o’s try.

“I just felt like the decision was made relatively quickly considering the amount of infringements we had,” Cherry-Evans said.

“You never know when you’re going to get those decisions against you, so any time you do get someone sent for 10, it usually comes as a bit of a shock. We did really well to scramble there for the most part of that 10 minutes.”

Said Slater: “We won’t use that as an excuse. Fatigue is a part of the game. When you go down to 12 men, your team is a lot more fatigued. That contributed, but it’s the game.”

Kaufusi had been embroiled in headlines after Origin I when he was charged - and then acquitted - after elbowing Roosters rival Sam Walker in the Storm’s win over the Roosters.

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NSW will try to win their first series decider at Suncorp Stadium since 2005 when eighth Immortal Andrew Johns steered the Blues to a memorable win.

“It’s one-all,” Fittler said. “As good as that was, it’s one-all. Simple as that. That’s the end of it. We’re playing at Suncorp and we’ve only won once there in four years. We’ll give ourselves a chance. It was good they didn’t stop either. I thought that was really important.

“It’s a tense situation. You’ve got to win. We had to win, simple as that. Now they’ll know what it feels like and we’ve got to make sure we somehow keep the burn.”

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