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I know this is going to sound really sick, but I miss the good old days when State of Origin was all about violence and the repulsive Maroons spirit.
Nowadays, it has transformed into a few months of selection debate over a team to be belted by Queensland, which is then selected and belted by Queensland.
The only thing that varies is how many pooper valves Wally Lewis ruptures.
When it comes to talking team selection here in New South Wales, we just start with the electoral roll and work backwards. We don’t like to leave anyone out of contention, so picking a squad of 17 becomes a menage a thousands.
And to be honest, can anyone blame us desperate southerners for such behaviour?
As a state, we’ve become known for two things in the modern day: our wonderful, world-class infrastructure, and a famous ability to compose a representative football team that is about as dangerous as a paper plate.
This year appears as indisposed as usual.
We have Bob Fulton as chief of selectors, a man who couldn’t pick his nose in the Sahara, and a 44-34 result in our ‘genuine Origin trial’ between City and Country that unearthed nothing except for a heap of blokes who aren’t keen on tackling.
As you can see, things can’t get much better. So allow me to step up to the plate and have a crack at fixing this mess on behalf of a state full of tired people so fed up they are considering crowd-funding for Fiji to come under our sovereignty.
The way I see it, if Laurie Daley and his selectors continue with the same nucleus of perennial runners-up they’ve so astutely built, all we’ll get is the same cafeteria slop we get each year: one emotional win in Sydney, and the possible chance of hanging on with the 42.5 start at Suncorp.
We need a circuit breaker, and the answer lies in some of the Blues’ most highly unforgettable years – 1995 and 2001.
If you’re a normal person, you’ll recall these as two of the grossest Origin series of all-time.
In ’95, Paul ‘Overweight Nickname’ Vautin pulled a whitewash clean out of his backside, and in ’01, Allan Langer was air-mailed home to force a fairytale down the throat of a whole state.
If I had to describe it, I would say both years were like spending a few hours choking on a cactus.
Behind these appallingly Maroon narratives lies the lesson for the Blues: Vautin’s side contained eight debutantes, while Wayne Bennett’s squad had an amazing ten. They flogged us with kids and saved a motza on shaving cream too.
The directive is simple. I urge the NSW hierarchy to copycat these suppressed memories.
We must treat last year’s Game 3 drubbing like it’s our hand grenade moment, meaning it’s time to cut out the withered branches sagging down the program in exchange for anyone who still has their ID checked at the door of the casino.
Give me Jack Bird, Bryce Cartwright, James Roberts, Matt Moylan, Ryan James et al. Strap up James Tedesco and get him out there on one leg. Throw in Josh Mansour, Tyson Frizell and Reagan Campbell-Gillard. Then give Wade Graham the captaincy and season with a Trbojevic of any persuasion.
What else is there to lose? Sure, the potential for early teething and lopsided results may see the Blues ‘tarnish the product’ of Origin, but haven’t they already?
Frankly, it’s a win either way for New South Wales. The Premier State either loses again – which we’re accustomed to – or we slaughter the Maroons with virile youngsters and send their immortals yippying into shameful retirement with their nine Origin titles.
And you know what else? The best thing about youth is that if you lose with youth you can always blame youth. Plus it’s a plan that builds for the future, which I’ve been told is a great time to build for.
The answer is so obvious for Daley. Everything else we’ve tried doesn’t work. Hanging out with the All Blacks, hiring mathematicians, training at altitude, hiring mathematicians to train at altitude. The whole operation has been a complete failure.
That’s why all that’s left is to show some chutzpah by picking a sparkly new crop ripe for slaughtering.