I’ve always admired courageous sportsmen and women, whatever the sport. I remember my jaw dropping when I first saw a UFC contest. That was real; no acting.
That was courage and they were real people locked in a cage risking serious injury, maybe even death. They were losing skin and blood to try and emerge victorious, or at least preserve their very existence.
All too often broadcasters, sports writers and fans these days use the words courage and heroes to the point where it has lost its real meaning in all the hype.
True courage, when exhibited at a crucial moment, is transcendental and comes naturally without prior thought.
As a sports fan it is impossible to escape its attraction, even if at that very moment its significance is unclear. In fact, sometimes it may not be appreciated until hours or even days later when you find out that they’ve played the game with a broken jaw.
We’ve all faced those moments in life and in sport and quite honestly some of us haven’t had the right amount of courage to face up to it. Real courage enables a person to face difficulty, danger and pain without fear of the moment.
Maybe the Harvey Norman State of Origin series is not as much a life and death situation as UFC might be, but it’s certainly a great way to find out how courageous a rugby league player you really are.
There will certainly be a lot of courage required from both teams and some blood and skin left behind on a damaging Etihad Stadium surface. And at the end of the game, the press will tell us who the courageous heroes were.
Paul Gallon sitting it out on the sidelines this week and watching his teammates train without him, declared it was the fastest and most skillful NSW Origin team he had ever seen.
With a huge, strong Queensland pack, coach Ricky Stuart might be hoping a faster, more mobile and industrious NSW team might be able to find the line breaks among the less mobile tiring forwards.
It takes courage to play Origin league, and lots of it. With a gang of four super primed Queensland State of Origin League players crushing you in the first few tackles, you may not be able to run so fast any more or even have the desired courage to run that fast into the Queensland pack next time.
You only play as well as the opposition lets you play and there’s something in the Queensland spirit that makes them play in a way that will test the courage of any team.
In the pivotal NSW positions we have the usual doubts. Robbie Farah has been tried at dummy half in State of Origin before and come out a poor second best to Cameron Smith.
Gallon once again plays at prop and is sure to get hammered at every opportunity. He needs to be the courageous leader.
In the halves we rely on Mitchell Pearce and Todd Carney. Carney is a bit of an unknown at this level and has had a chequered career and a well publicised problem with the bottle. It’s a different kind of bottle he’s going to need in Origin I, one full of courage.
After six straight years of series defeats, it would be easy when faced with seemingly unsurmountable adversity to lay down and give in; the Banana Benders are expected to win anyway.
With Gallon leading the charge, I don’t think there will be a lack of courage but more a matter of how much courage, what is the boundary of that courage and if it’s enough to win.
I would love the Blues to take out the series and end the shame of not having won a State of Origin quest for seven straight years, but I’m thinking it’s business as usual for the Maroons.
We Blues fans might just have to find that little bit of extra courage once again, to swallow our pride and accept that Queensland is a better rugby league team.
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Queensland often has the right mix of generational talent, playmaking brilliance and these nuts-and-bolts players that bind them together like glue.
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