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State Of Origin’s biggest strength, and its biggest weakness, is that at this time of year no-one is impartial.
All the main commentators and administrators in Australian rugby league are from NSW or Queensland – even if an increasing number of players and supporters are from elsewhere. Inevitably, this means the interests of those players and supporters are not properly represented.
I’ve mentioned some of the symptoms of this before: the fact there is no planning whatsoever for the other states to play meaningful, Origin-style games against each other, that there is a reluctance to let NSW and Queensland players represent other countries for which they qualify, that the Blues and Maroons get away with predatory recruiting, waving around their $30,000 a match to fellas who’ve grown up in Pacific villages.
There is a giant pair of blinkers, one at Cape York, the other along the Murray, this time every winter.
Another great example of this is the Michael Ennis-Robbie Farah situation this week.
Let’s get this straight: if Michael Ennis plays in Origin III, he has escaped suspension despite the judiciary suspending him. As an Origin player, he would not have been eligible for the game from which he has been banned anyway and you can bet the Blues would have made a decision before he turned out for Cronulla this weekend on whether he would be required.
If the loophole is not closed – and it will be, probably at the start of business on Thursday – it could be exploited in a number of other ways. A player could be picked by a representative team, have that game included in his suspension, and then be dropped at the last minute.
But the commentary on this issue has been depressingly partisan.
The Queenslanders point out that it is unfair and dodgy and the New South Welshmen respond that the Maroons got away with it when they did the same with Lote Tuqiri. So it’s one-all. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.
It is left to people like New Zealand blogger Dale Budge to point out how ridiculous and procedurally flawed this all is, that Origin is a football game between two sides and fair and equitable rules are more important than a damn football game.
But even people who aren’t from NSW and Queensland pick a side. Rugby league just isn’t a big enough sport yet to put this fervour in perspective.
I could go on about how these “higher” principals generally have less traction across Australian society than in some other countries, and I could posit a theory about how the country’s anti-authoritarian origins (there’s that word again) could have something to do with that. But I won’t.
Once again we are just completing another lap on rugby league Groundhog Day. We once closed this loophole by suspending players for weeks instead of matches, but then the demerit system came in and we opened it up again.
And now we’ll close it again.
The solution will be that all suspensions expire at the start of the following club round, not at the conclusion of the round including the final match of the ban. But that will be too late for Origin III.
Bending the rules is part of rugby league’s heritage. Sadly, so is tolerating it.