Ahead of Thursday night's Women's State of Origin opener in Newcastle, both New South Wales and Queensland have found themselves in a bind.Aside from February's All Star game, most players enter the match without having played a game in 2026.With Origin acting as the unofficial beginning to the year for women's rugby league, how does one prepare to hit the ground running in one of the biggest games of their life without a warm-up match to show for it?The answer for the Blues was simple — they crashed into each other until John Strange's ideal team belted itself into shape.Through a six-week training block leading into Game I, the Sky Blues played two internal matches with the intensity turned up to 11 in an effort to repeat last year's series victory."They were ridiculous We played one game and that wasn't enough, then we played two games and that was stupid, now we're playing three games and we're talking about not having games before it," Boyle said."It's not ideal that we haven't played beforehand but Queensland are in the same boat."The Blues might have a slight edge given they could be a little more comfortable in that boat.They have 14 of last year's 17 from Game III returning, all of whom went through the same training block last year