The South of England made it a third straight win in a row against the North of England in the 2007 Origin series.

The match started of badly for the defending champions as the North’s forwards made good yardage down the right flank and then ran the ball on the last tackle, transferring the ball quickly through several pairs of hands they found the South’s winger isolated and centre Mark Roach found a huge gap to exploit and once through he calmly drew the full back and sent in winger Nick Mercer for the first try of the game after only 45 seconds. Kiel Lancashire adding the extra two points from the touchline.

From the kick off the North headed forward again and foul play gave them a penalty and excellent field position. With the South’s defence holding firm on their own line it required an excellent grubber kick from North Stand off Mark Forber who slotted the ball into the in goal area for Daniel Davis to touch down, again Kiel Lancashire clinical with the boot to give the North a 12-0 lead.

With the North pressing on the South’s were in real trouble until a forward pass gave the South possession for the first time since the kick off. Good forward play, quick play the balls and excellent kicking led to two goal line drop outs from the North. The pressure eventually told and the North were caught off side on their own line and this allowed Pete Le Marquand to open the South’s account and make it 12-2.

The North had a chance to further extend their lead when the South’s were caught offside, however Lancashire missed the conversion to leave the scores at 12-2. Soon after the South were down to 12 men as Matt Jackson was sin binned for a high shot. The North using there advantage almost scored but Richard Lofthouse was held up in goal. The North then failed to capitalise on their numerical advantage and some indiscipline gave the South excellent field position and after good hands out wide on the left Adam Cook hit a great line to break the tackles and score to make it 12-6 as Pete Le Marquand missed the conversion attempt.

More North penalties and repeat sets saw the South camped in their opponents half for five minutes and the pressure told as Matt Jackson crashed over from 10 yards out to make it 12-10 with Le Marquand adding the conversion to make it 12-12 at half time.

The North struck first again in the second half after a great Darrly Lacey pass put the centre Paddy O’Grady in for a score out wide only for the referee to cancel it out for a forward pass. O’Grady didn’t have to wait long to cross the try line again as from the resulting scrum Oli Fountain knocked on 5m from his own line and O’Grady pounced on the ball to score and make it 16-12 with Lancashire adding another difficult conversion to give the North a 18-12 lead.

Shortly after the Score the North found themselves down to 12 men as Richard Lofthouse was sin binned for striking at the play the ball. The South seemed to have taken advantage of the numbers when Danny Burke dived over from close range only for the referee to adjudge that he had lost the ball. The South’s then had a second try disallowed after the North’s winger dropped a high ball and Steve Barnes picked up the lose ball to score, however the Referee again ruled a knock on. From the resulting scrum the South scored as on the second tackle as Prop Andy Lake crashed over from short range to make the score 18 – 16 again Pete Le Marquand adding the extras to make it 18 – 18.

The South scored again just 3 minutes later, again out wide on the left as good hands saw centre Tom Milne squeeze in at the corner to give the South the lead for the first time at 18-22 with Pete Le Marquand missing the conversion attempt.

The game was finally put beyond doubt with only 6 minutes to play when Adam Cook crossed for his second of the afternoon from close range after dummying and diving over. Pete Le Marquand this time made sure of the conversion to give the South a final winning lead of 18-28