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If you can’t beat them, join them. So let’s have a Rugby Union Queensland Vs NSW State of Origin series. The notion was floated by John Connolly in his review of the upcoming Super 14 Waratahs-Reds match at the Sydney Football Stadium.
My original reaction that that Connolly was an old Queensland warhorse who was missing the “It’s great to be an Australian but even better to be a Queenslander” feeling in the days of professional rugby when players switch from one state to another at the drop of a new contract.
In Connolly’s day as a successful Queensland coach, the year was made for the Reds if they defeated NSW, even if every other game was lost.
And in the early years of Super Rugby, this tribal passion for defeating NSW was maintained with the annual clash generally being a Super Rugby match as a dour and ferocious affair.
Most of the biff was dished out by the Reds.
The sainted David Campese, for instance, was whacked in one of the early Super Rugby matches by Damien Smith, just because he was a Waratah.
But the interchange of players to the various Super Rugby franchises, which started with Nathan Grey defecting from Queensland to NSW, has taken much of the tribalism out of the contest.
We’ve now got the Reds stalwart hooker Michael Foley coaching with the Waratahs, and the High Performance manager for the Reds is Ben Whitaker, the brother of the former Waratahs captain Chris Whitaker.
The way to get the tribalism back and restore what was one of Australian rugby’s best annual events (after the Bledisloe Cup Tests) is to bring back a Rugby Union State of Origin.
The rules about eligibility should be strict: only players born in Queensland can play for the Reds, and only players born in NSW can play State of Origin for NSW.
I had a telephone chat with Tony Dempsey, the CEO of the Rugby Union Players Association, about the viability of the concept. “It’s a great concept,” he assured me, “and the main concern about it is when could it be fitted in.”
Working from the Tests dates for this season, for instance, there will be only a limited window of opportunity, he pointed out, between the end of the Super 14 and the first Tests against overseas teams.
Similarly, between the end of these Tests and the start of the Tri-Nations tournament, there is little scope for a major rugby series.
But what about after the Tri-Nations is ended?
In South Africa there is the Currie Cup and in New Zealand the National Provincial Championship for players and spectators in the couple of months before the overseas tour.
In Australia, there is really nothing on in big time rugby. So about what about the Rugby Union State of Origin then?
The series would provide some great rugby for the Australian public and for many of the Wallabies waiting for their overseas tour. And it would also gift some revenue for the ARU to distribute to the use to develop rugby at the grassroots club level.
The public could be drafted in to put forward names of players for selection. And I’ve already pencilled in the names of the first coaches: Rod Macqueen for NSW (he coached NSW in 1991 to an unbeaten season, including matches in Argentina, and then was dumped) and Tim Horan, a Reds great, an Australian selector, and a commentator of note.
The commentators pick themselves: Greg Martin for the Reds and Phil Kearns for NSW.