Every year since 1980, the best players born in NSW clash in a three match series against those from Queensland. The media hype leading into the match is huge – with good reason.
The Origin series is one of the biggest sporting events in Australia, up there with the Melbourne Cup, the Boxing Day Test and the Bledisloe Cup. Perhaps bigger than them all.
What is it about the Origin series that invokes such passion and interest?
There’s undoubtedly great history behind the clash. And the ‘state versus state, mate versus mate’ nature of the game brings out the best (and worst) in the players. Then there’s the record of both teams, which is remarkably even. NSW have won 12 series, compared to Queensland’s 11.
But what makes the Origin series special is the sheer intensity of the match itself. The speed, power and passion of the match is arguably unmatched in all the rugby codes. Is the Origin series the best football of all?
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sheek said | May 18th 2007 @ 11:01am | Report comment
Rugby League’s State-Of-Origin (SOO) is based on a fragile premise. That is, that Queensland continue to be competitive, & win their share of series.
The SOO got off to the best start possible, with Qld winning 8 of the first 11 matches 1980-84. The concept has looked dodgy on the few occassions NSW have had a run of easy successes. It’s based on the ‘David (Qld) v Goliath (NSW)’ concept, & in most cases, it works.
But at its best, SOO is the most intense & entralling contest in Australian sport. Neither team can relax for a minute, with many games won with the last play, run or kick of the match. The AFL, who are considering resurrecting their version, were crazy to dispense with it in the first place.
I was with some mates last night, & we were unanimous that league is kicking the backside off Rugby at the moment. Sad but true!
Zac Zavos said | May 18th 2007 @ 11:06am | Report comment
Good point, Sheek. You certainly don’t hear the negative comments from league fans like we’re hearing from rugby supporters. Read Growden’s Ruck and Maul in today’s SMH…it’s all gloom and doom.
Roger said | May 18th 2007 @ 11:25am | Report comment
SOO should be decided by just one match per season.Thats it.
Greg said | May 18th 2007 @ 12:30pm | Report comment
SOO is the only league I watch and it is as entertaining is league can be. But to say it is bigger than other major australian sports is just way off the mark. This comes from living in NSW or QLD, maybe getting out of that area would put it into perspective for you.
Going on the 2005 tv ratings figures the AFL Grand Final was the top of the ratings with the Pre-Game and Wrap-up getting 2nd and 3rd. With almost a million less viewers the NRL Grand Final came in next and then with 75 thousand less than the NRL, the Melbourne Cup was 5th.
Origin didn’t even rate in the top 5. As far as Australia-wide sports go Origin just doesn’t cut it at all, it is simply from living in Sydney or Brisbane that the opinion that it is “bigger than them all” comes from.
AFL Grand Final football is the best football of all as far as stats go.
World Cup football would have something to say about your outlandish comments too, Zac.
So would World Cup rugby, i’m sure!
slomo said | May 18th 2007 @ 12:33pm | Report comment
Whatever the current perceptions about the so called problems with Rugby (most complaints I see seem to come from Australia – not much from NZ or SA), for those of us not brought up with league, it will never escape being boringly simplistic and one dimensional. Australian Rugby Union administrators seem to be paralysed because of their obsession with league.
Why is it that because there are problems with Rugby in Australia, you guys extrapolate that state of affairs onto the whole Rugby playing world. They seem to be filling stadia in SA every weekend and crowds in NZ seem to be holding firm as well. To me it’s clear that if Australian teams get back to winning, all the negativity will go away. Concentrate on getting the rugby right; stop paying average players fortunes at the expense of developing promising youngsters, of which there is no shortage in this country.
Terry Kidd said | May 18th 2007 @ 1:02pm | Report comment
SOO is popular because of the intensity …. end of story.
Higher level rugby in Oz is losing ground because the unpredictability, and hence the excitement, has been temporarily lost. It will come back.
Yesterday I watched about 15 mins of a schoolboy U15 match in Brisvegas …. I saw a fullback with not enough time to kick give a long pass across field to his winger who was confronted with an onrushing defence and no support. He started forward towards the defence, then chip kicked ahead, ran through, kicked again, regathered and out paced the cover to score under the posts. Now that is exciting rugby.
The young fella got applause all round and even some from the opposition.
Long live the game.
Kate said | May 18th 2007 @ 2:39pm | Report comment
Biggest sporting event in Australia? I take it the author’s never left NSW or QLD and has never taken a look at the AFL Grand Final, now THAT’s football fever.
spiro zavos said | May 18th 2007 @ 5:24pm | Report comment
When the actual play of a State of Origin match is studied, the realisation comes that much of it is predictable one-up bashes by forwards. Generally there is little play for the wingers, except for them being required to defuse bombs. This is incidental as far as the crowd, especially a Queensland crowd is concerned. Every run, every hit (and they are invariably ferocious) is greeted with waves of roars. The crowd is as up for a State of Origin as any of the players.
What makes State Of Origin so intense is the narrative of the event, the Queensland David against the Goliath NSW. From the beginning, Queenslanders have perceived the State of Origin as a ‘them’ against ‘us’ contest. As Hugh Lunn, the great Queensland writer and reporter once said: ‘There is no such thing as an ex-Queenslander.’ Artie Beetson demonstrated this when playing for the Maroons in the first State of Origin he belted Mick Cronin, a Parramatta team-mate, who happened, on the night, to be playing for the NSW Blues.
The head of QRL, Senator Ron McAuliffe, marched out on to Lang Park before the first State of Origin in 1980. 35,000 spectators had turned up for the match. The normal crowd for a Queensland-NSW match was about 5,000. Striding along with Senator McAuliffe was Gough Whitlam, the Prime Minister who had been booted out of office in a landslide in 1975. When the huge crowd spotted the two Labor politicans there was an enormous roaring-boo. ‘McAuliffe,’ the great Gough said sharply to his mate, ‘I never realised how unpopular you are up here.’
The roaring-boos, of course, were (superficially) for Whitlam. They were really for every insult, every joke, every contrivance designed to put Queenslanders down in rugby league, in all the other sports and in every aspect of life. Queenslanders were asserting their chauvinistic mantra : ‘It’s great to be an Australian. But it’s even better to be a Queenslander.’
Like New Zealanders and South Africans in rugby tests, Queenslanders regard the State of Origin contest as a life and death struggle that if it is won validates the unique qualities of life in their State. Hence the call when the Maroons need to fight back or to hold on: ‘Queenslander! Queenslander!’
Armchair Sportsfan said | May 18th 2007 @ 6:14pm | Report comment
spiro has hit the nail on the head.
As a heart on the sleeve queenslander myself, it is all true.
The flip side is an inherent hate of all things NSW. I don’t know what it is, or why, but it is as natural for me as breathing.
I lived in Sydney for 5 years, and I love my rugby. For a number of years a few mates convinced me to get Waratahs season passes – I went to the games, thinking (even though thereds weren’t playing) I would just enjoy watching some good rugby (when the warathas were actually playing good rugby), but I found that every game I would inherently be cheering the other side on – it didn’t matter if they were from south africa or NZ, I just wanted to see the tahs lose, and more importantly, to see the smug sydneysiders silenced. I couldn’t help it.
Even now, when I flick to the super 14 on TV, if the Brumbies or the Force ar playing a non-aussie team, I will always cheers for the aussie team. But if it’s the Tahs, I just can’t do it.
Back to SOO, it is this inherent and instintive passion (particualry from the QLD side)that make SOO such a great event.
As an aside, while I am nealry a broken man after the Reds seaons this year, I feel that the Reds team is bereft of this passion nowadays, it feels like “QLD Reds – the Super 14 Club”, not “QLD Reds – the team representing the mighty state of Queensland”. Alas, maybe I am a dying breed in the age of professionalism.
PB said | May 18th 2007 @ 6:39pm | Report comment
League is a concocted game. Rules concocted to create a TV spectacle, virtually devoid of any competition for the ball. State of Origin is a concocted contest and League fans lap it up. A sorry statement for any sport is that its pinnacle is a state contest. League has no international profile whatsoever – if Australia turn up to play, they’ll flog anyone.
Soccer is the world’s premier football code. Rugby is the world’s premier contact footballl code. Nothing else even comes into calculation, including daylight. League will always exist on the fringes on the east coast of Australia, a tiny corner of England and NZ. The world’s poplulation have decided what they want to watch.