Queensland captain Darren Lockyer says he didn't need to be told he would be the prime target of big striding NSW forward Ben Creagh in Wednesday night's opening State of Origin game in Sydney.

The revelation that Creagh will be assigned the job of terrorising Lockyer with his wide running, hardly came as a surprise to the Maroons skipper and hasn't filled him with fear.

"Even before that came out today I knew Ben would be running at me," said Lockyer who confronts the tactic to tire him out every week in the NRL.

"When I've got the football on their left side he will be coming at me to put pressure on me with his defence.

"It's nothing new."

Lockyer will have to deal with the likes of Ben Creagh, Matt Cooper and try scoring genius Brett Morris attacking down his side but he is confident he will have the back-up to stop them.

"Ben runs some pretty good lines but there are ways to handle it," he said.

"In Origin sometimes you're out on your feet a bit and it's hard every time he gets the football to combat that.

"The halves are the smallest guys out there, everyone else is pretty big.

"It makes for a pretty physical encounter."

Lockyer, playing his final Origin series, admitted he wasn't sure if hooker Cameron Smith would recover in time to play his 20th straight Origin.

"Cameron is very important to Queensland.

"He's been there for pretty much all the success we have had over the last four series.

"He does the little things really well, he's a good talker with forwards, he creates a lot of things around the ruck and he's got a good kicking game.

"We'll miss that if he's not there but Matty Ballin has been in camp from day one and he will get familiar with our plays.

"We may be a little bit lost but we're confident with what Matt can do and he's played in a grand final so he can handle the big occasion."

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