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State of Origin will no longer have the farcical situation of players playing for one state, when they were where born, raised and played their first senior football in another state.
Greg Inglis, I’m talking about you.
Born in New South Wales, raised in Kempsey on the NSW mid-north coast, went to high school in Newcastle at Hunter Sports High. You may feel more like a Queenslander, but you shouldn’t be playing for the Maroons.
The Courier-Mail revealed last week that the NRL, QRL, NSWRL and NZRL have discussed introducing stronger eligibility rules for representative footy. The bodies’ officials have talked about a more thorough assessment process, with a player’s eligibility to also be determined by where he went to school, where he played his junior football and, particularly in international cases, his parents’ heritage.
These new guidelines are expected to be in place before the 2013 Origin series.
Under the current laws a player’s Origin status is determined by where his first senior game was played after the age of 16.
Under the new rules the Inglis selection, and that of his former Melbourne Storm teammate Israel Folau, wouldn’t have happened.
Folau, now playing AFL for Greater Western Sydney Giants, was born in and raised in Sydney. He went to Lurnea Public School and Westfield Sports High School, along with Parramatta’s Jarryd Hayne. His family later moved to Brisbane.
Because of the Storm’s link with Queensland Cup clubs as feeder outfits, emerging talent like Inglis and Folau played in Queensland. They then went on to star for the Maroons in the toughest rugby league arena of all.
Queensland fans will look at this and say it is all NSW whingeing, simply because the Blues have lost the past six series in a row. But this is about fairness and common sense.
No one player can win a whole Origin series, barring maybe “The King” and Joey Johns.
If you take Inglis or Folau out of the past six Origin periods, I would bet Queensland still would have won.
This is instead about fixing the problems of the past and avoiding dramas in the future. And it’s long overdue.
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