Before digital television, it was a case of crossing fingers for Victorian rugby league lovers, hoping that Channel Nine (or Channel Ten in the early days) would actually show State of Origin at a reasonable hour.
Often, the best chance to watch the game live was to see it in the flesh on those rare opportunities that the fixture headed south.
It’s only happened seven times (tonight will be eight) and despite the limited media coverage of the event in Melbourne, crowds have mostly been strong.
To test the waters, Melbourne’s Olympic Park was chosen to make history in 1990. Almost 26,000 flocked to the medium-sized ground to see what all the fuss was about. The fuss on that night was New South Wales winning 12-6 to wrap up the series and end Queensland’s three-year dominance.
Allan Langer giving away a penalty with a steal in the dying stages when Glenn Lazarus appeared to be playing on was the major talking point and would surely have sent Twitter into meltdown if it had happened in the 21st century.
It took four years for the series to return to the sporting capital of Australia and this time, 80 years on from hosting its first rugby league match between New South Wales and England, the ‘G was christened with State of Origin in 1994.
Melbournians again responded with a then record Australian rugby league crowd of 87,161. The neutrals wanted a spectacle but Blues coach Phil Gould was only interested in getting the result after losing Game 1. NSW did just that, winning 14-0.
State of Origin returned to the MCG in 1995 and 1997 but with Super League disputes starting to fester in 1995, and the competition eventually splitting in 1997, it was harder to convince locals to turn up to the games.
Even so, 1995 proved to be a major upset with Paul ‘Fatty’ Vautin’s Queenslanders winning the series in a clean sweep despite being severely hampered by their Super League aligned players being ineligible for selection. The cauldron of the MCG got the testosterone flowing and a massive fight broke out during the first scrum which took referee Eddie Ward five minutes to get the game back underway.
The idea of playing in Victoria seemed to take a significant hit, as did rugby league in general in 1997. Just 25,000 turned up to Origin at the MCG.
However, with the Melbourne Storm proving to be a consistent team after their 1999 grand final win, rugby league found a niche market in Victoria and it made sense to re-try the Origin experiment.
That happened in 2006 with Docklands Stadium the venue. It was the first time a neutral venue had hosted a decider and Queensland fell in love with the place. They scored two late tries to take an unlikely victory, setting the course for their eight series wins in a row.
Docklands Stadium has since hosted games in 2009 and 2012, both Queensland wins, the latter still haunting Blues supporters with the Greg Inglis try ruling.
Tewnty-five years on from the first Melbourne State of Origin league game the eighth fixture is back at the epicentre of Australian sport. There’s still that novelty factor for Melbourne but also a sense of admiration for the concept that’s continued to thrive while the AFL version died out.
Those in Melbourne who couldn’t get tickets to the expected sell-out event can ironically get better television coverage than their NSW and Queensland counterparts by being able to watch in high definition.
The NRL knows Wednesday is their night to show off the best the game has to offer to people who may only watch this one game a year. It won’t convert people from their AFL religion but it will create noise and what’s better than the noise of 90,000 people at the MCG on a Wednesday night.
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