The Roar
The Roar

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Origin time is the best of times

At Origin time, all the usual fights, disagreements and troubles go out the door... (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Roar Guru
21st May, 2015
38

For me, Origin is older than club footy. Born the year Origin started, I was a Maroons fan before the Broncos even existed.

Born in Queensland but living in NSW, the Origin battle for me began as a brainwashing exercise between my father and my older brother. Eventually we moved back to Queensland and my father won.

Sometimes I imagine the NRL as a street with sixteen houses on it. Some of the houses are really old and run down, some recently renovated, some new and flashy. But, all the neighbours hate each other, they are constantly bickering and battling over everything.

That house stole my DCE! That house paid more for their TV than we were allowed to pay for ours! That house gets to have their tea party at the same time every day!

There are nine houses that formed a gang before the rest were built and they hate each other vehemently but they hate the rest more, and apparently they won’t let the house at the far end of the street play with them after dark.

Then something so big comes along that all those little battles are dropped and forgotten, the street is split in two, straight down the middle. Everyone comes out to their front yard, stands at their white picket fence and throws whatever they can get their hands on at those nasty, monstrous, beasts on the other side of the road.

The brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts come to see what the ruckus is about and end up joining in too, shouting insults at those horrible others across the road. It’s the battle to end all battles, the street is divided (or rather joined) into two opposing forces, ready to go hammer and tongs at each other for supremacy.

What other sport in the world can take 16 little tribes and make them join together to form two big ones? In what other pursuit could it possibly be OK to be so irrationally one eyed and biased?

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When all sense has gone out the window all that is left is one question: Blue or Maroon?

Who cares if the game has evolved into a slightly sanitised version of its former self, so what if the tall poppies want to take everything in our pockets to let us watch what belongs to us anyway, and yeah maybe this series does have an impact on our clubs fortunes.

You know what? I bloody love this time year.

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