At this time of year, I constantly hear people saying, “I don’t get State of Origin”. For those of you who don’t get it, I can understand that.
If you don’t follow league, and don’t come from Queensland or New South Wales, why would you?
I am a soccer fan. Being a scrawny kid, I was never solid enough to play rugby league, so soccer was the sport I enjoyed playing most.
Growing up in country Queensland though, if you didn’t follow rugby league, well, there really was no regular media coverage of any other winter sport.
My granddad had played A-grade for Wynnum Manly, my uncle for South Brisbane, so I have always watched and enjoyed rugby league.
One of my earliest memories is going to Lang Park with my granddad to see Queensland get beaten by NSW in 1971, 10 years before State of Origin began. He bought me a poster that used to hang on my cupboard door listing the result of every match from the first in 1908 through to 1970.
As a Queenslander, it was depressing. From the year I was born in 1965 to the end of that damn poster, Queensland won two, drew two and lost 19 games to NSW. And their record before that was just as bad.
Overall, Queensland won only 54 games out of 221 interstate matches from 1908 to 1981.
In 1980, Queensland lost the two state games 35-3 and 17-7, the second in front of a pathetic 1638 Sydney fans.
Queensland Rugby League said lets play the third game as a State of Origin. NSW Rugby League said sure, you’ve still got no chance. Then 33,120 Queenslanders went along to Lang Park to cheer home their heroes 20-10, a result only they believed was possible, and a legend was born.
I had a personal connection with that team. After school, I would go to my mother’s place of work where one of her co-workers was player Alan Smith, and the coach, John McDonald, used to park behind her car and I often got to speak with him, while other Queensland players such as the great Rohan Hancock used to come in regularly.
Thirty years on and now Queensland has won six in a row. Am I happy? Not on your life! I can’t wait till it’s seven, and long may it continue! There is still way too much blue on my old poster compared to red on the new.
So if you don’t “get” State of Origin, then to be totally honest, I couldn’t care less. It’s not about you. It’s about me, and millions of other like minded Queenslanders and New South Welshmen, and the passion we all share.
Come on Queensland!
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