Wrestle-mania is set to grip Wednesday night's State of Origin series opener with Queensland coach Mal Meninga confessing he too employed a wrestling coach this series.

Queensland great Gorden Tallis sparked a match eve war of words when he described NSW coach Craig Bellamy's decision to hire wrestling expert John Donehue as a "disgrace".

But Bellamy, whose use of Donehue at Melbourne Storm has attracted much criticism, hit back on Tuesday revealing the Maroons have had a dabble with the grapple.

"Perhaps Gorden can have a look at the Queensland camp, a little birdy tells me they've had a wrestling coach in for a few sessions as well," said Bellamy.

"I think he should be having a look at his own backyard before he starts sticking his nose in ours."

Confronted with accusations of hiring their own wrestling coach, Meninga had no choice but to admit Queensland had brought "an outsider" in to coach the players in the area of groundwork.

This despite many Maroons greats and officials previously claiming they wanted Donehue barred from the NSW camp to protect the sanctity of rugby league's showpiece event so the game didn't turn into a "wrestle-fest."

"We've done a little bit of the on-the-ground work," said Meninga.

"The ground is very important in the modern game, winning the ground whether it be in defence or attack.

"We've focussed on it for a couple of sessions but then again not anything different to what the players are used to at club level."

NSW skipper Danny Buderus is certainly one player who can understand the argument against wrestling.

A born and bred country boy, the Newcastle hooker learnt and mastered the old-school defence of a driving tackle, both low and hard.

But even the 30-year-old, in his final Origin series, concedes getting numbers into tackles and dominating by whatever means necessary is crucial to Wednesday's clash.

"No-one wants to see wrestling dominating our game but if you don't wrestle then players are going to take advantage of that," he said.

"If you don't get a half decent slow play-the-ball (from the opposition) then they're going to be in your face and going to score.

"So we're going to wrestle, you've got to."

Queensland will start raging hot favourites for Wednesday's game after a flood of money on Tuesday for the Maroons to win the series opener despite winning just once in 12 visits to ANZ Stadium.

Last year's 10-6 drought-breaking win secured the series for Queensland and they head into 2008 chasing a record-equalling third straight series and their first three-peat in almost two decades.

In 27 years of Origin, Queensland have hardly experienced such overwhelming favouritism and the players have done their best to avoid media hype leading into the clash.

But Bellamy believes the outburst from Tallis, and assistant coach Trevor Gillmeister's "cheap shot merchant" accusation on Blues lock Paul Gallen on the weekend, are examples of the Maroons trying ever so desperately to regain the underdog status they value so dearly.

"They've obviously worked that out leading up to Origin games throughout the week they get ex-Origin players to come out and say certain things," said Bellamy.

"I don't know whether they're trying to take pressure off themselves or what it is, but at the end of the day it's nothing unexpected, it's certainly not going to worry us."

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