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Matthew Lloyd for Victoria attempts to mark in front of Sean Wellman for South Australia during the State of Origin AFL match between Victoria and South Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on May 29, 1999. Slattery Images
A curious story appeared on the Herald Sun website last night, reporting that State of Origin football may see a revival and a mid-season trade window may be introduced – the latter as early as next year – after a meeting of chief executives and the league yesterday.
The two possibilities were confirmed by operations manager Adrian Anderson.
“The CEOs are happy for us to have a closer look at the State of Origin suggestion,” Anderson said. “The mid-season window might make the trade system more flexible.”
Before we get too carried away, there’s one pretty good reason to be sceptical.
If ever there was a time for the AFL – and Adrian Anderson, for that matter – to put out a story to divert the media’s attention, this week would be it.
But if we are to overlook the prevalence of tanking and “cheating” stories during the week and assume the league are genuine, these could be two very interesting developments.
State of Origin footy
The return of State of Origin is long overdue.
We know that Origin died due to national expansion (as players were all of the sudden representing their state week in, week out) and because of the divided loyalties of players (who began putting club ahead of state). But those issues are irrelevant today.
On the first point, times have simply changed. Western Australia and South Australia are no longer represented by one team.
In addition, thanks to the draft, players have become more dispersed around the country and, thanks to more expansion into non-traditional markets, moving away from one’s home state is only going to become more common.
The “national expansion” argument is now meaningless.
On the second point, all that is needed to address the issue of divided loyalty is to learn from the mistakes of the past. It’s fair to say having Origin annually and mid-season is a recipe for disaster – of course players are going to grow tired of the concept under such a set-up.
By holding Origin either pre-season or post-season (like International Rules) – and possibly not every year – it would remain relevant for players.
After all, you don’t have to look far to notice that players are actually quite keen for representative footy. Speaking of the bleak outlook for Origin this year, Scott Pendlebury wrote in his newspaper column: “This is a great shame, because the misconception is that players don’t like it. Or don’t want it. To me, that’s incorrect.”
He’s not the only player to make such comments publicly – see Chris Judd and Nick Maxwell, plus Jonathan Brown, plus Matthew Pavlich.
What the AFL lacks in comparison to the other codes is a true form of representative football. Origin is the answer.
Put simply, it’s time.
Mid-season trade period
The idea of a mid-season trade window is a radical one in AFL circles. You only need to look as far as the fallout of Phil Davis announcing his move to GWS this week to see the industry struggles to get its head around players moving clubs while the season is still in progress.
However, that doesn’t mean the idea does not have some merit. Anderson was keen to spruik the line that fans love the trade period and it generates a lot of interest. Last night he had an ally in Brisbane Lions forward Jonathan Brown.
“Our sport’s too reliant on good draft picks and not having injuries,” Brown told The Footy Show.
The most obvious advantage from a club perspective would be to cover any injuries that pop up during the season. The past two years, for example, Hawthorn would have been able to bring in an extra ruckman to make up for their injuries in this area. This year they might be in the market for a key defender.
Perhaps, though, trades aren’t the answer. Having a second radical change to player movement at the same time as free agency is introduced may be too much too soon.
What might be preferable – and this idea has also been reported as part of yesterday’s discussions – is a mid-season draft, which would allow players from second-tier leagues to be recruited. It’s something I wrote about last year on the back of James Podsiadly and Michael Barlow’s successful transition to the AFL.
That might just be the suitable starting point.
Ultimately, though, it’s a positive thing the AFL are bringing these two topics to the table. Even if it is a ploy to distract us all from all those pesky “integrity” stories.