In the spirit of State of Origin, what would the AFL Queensland and New South Wales representative squads look like?
Based on the criteria that place of birth and junior club or clubs played for and or drafted from both qualify for eligibility, these are the teams that I have selected.
Firstly the New South Wales and ACT team:
F Justin Koschitzke Tom Hawkins Isaac Smith
HF Adam Schneider Taylor Walker Ben McGlynn
C Kieran Jack Lenny Hayes Craig Bird
HB Tony Armstrong L. Roberts-Thompson Mark McVeigh
B Dylan Addison Phil Davis Brent Staker
R Hamish McIntosh Daniel Cross Jarrad McVeigh
I Matthew Suckling Luke Breust Jacob Townsend
Sub Aiden Riley
Emg Jason Tutt Malcolm Lynch Nathan Gordon
And the Queenslanders:
F David Hale Kurt Tippett Jarrod Harbrow
HF Michael Osbourne Nick Riewoldt Ricky Petterd
C David Armitage Dane Beams Courtenay Dempsey
HB Brendan Whitecross Sam Gilbert Cheynee Stiller
B Luke McGuane Daniel Merrett Josh Drummond
R Shaun Hampson Simon Black Karmichael Hunt
I Rohan Bail Claye Beams Andrew Raines
Sub Joel MacDonald
Emg Zac Smith Brad Miller Peter Yagmoor
If I had to pick a winner, I would go with New South Wales. I feel their spine (Hawkins, Walker, Hayes, LRT and Davis) is very solid and their midfield just shades that of the Queenslanders. Even so, this would be a close game indeed.
Furthermore, St Kilda and Hawthorn each supply six players for these two teams. I am not sure if that is a coincidence or perhaps they invest heavily in scouting these two regions. The Western Australian clubs have zero representation in these two squads, which is an interesting point.
In addition to the attitudes of the clubs from a recruiting point of view, I believe that the development Queensland and NSW/ACT footballers has taken some huge leaps forward in the past decade to be able to produce this quantity and quality of players.
If these two teams were to play who do you think would win? Who would you put in your Queensland or New South Wales teams?
Football fan
Guest
The purose of State of Origin is players get picked from were they were born or where they played most of career as a junoir, you can't count players just because they play club Football in a State.
Redb
Roar Guru
So basicially your post was wrong.
Jaceman
Guest
Bird is a tagger extraordinaire...
Cman
Guest
I'm talking about a record for RL SOO in Melbourne not sport in general. 400,000 is a very impressive number for a game that Lachlan the Guru described having no national dominance. The AFL would be happy with those numbers most friday night for a AFL game in melbourne.
Redb
Roar Guru
Cman, Your joking right. The TV ratings for SOO RL boxing might hit 400,000, thats not even what the AFL gets for a regular Friday night game on FTA and Foxtel combined over 3 hours for Melbourne now its live. The AFL GF pulls 1.5M in Melbourne. Origin doesnt come close. lol Most casual viewers watch for the fights. its the one thing that has been removed from AFL that gets missed in anachronistic type of way, that is the odd biff that gets allowed in Origin.
Cman
Guest
Keep telling yourself that Lachlan if it helps you. But you do know the NRL are once again going to breaking TV viewing recorders in Melbourne tonight for SOO.
Lachlan
Roar Guru
Well when a sport only captures the hearts of people in nsw and queensland and doesn't have a national dominance like "Australia's Game" it's only limited to certain things.......Hence the reason we got rid of it.
Punter
Guest
Rep games in football like the recent European championships doesn't hurt the professional clubs like Manchester united or Barcelona!!!!
Punter
Guest
Funny I have always thought of AFL being the McDonalds of Australian sport, expanding into other people heartland, but the locals are saying but we have our own local cuisine & the AFL saying but McDonald's is the Australian burger, we should all enjoy it.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Cman, Its actually the opposite. The AFL is going 'geez, we're glad we stopped running our special hamburger nights. People were going to them, and avoiding the other 97 night a year'.
Timmuh
Roar Guru
It only defeats the purpose if, under the last Australia Football SoO rules, the player would not be eligible for the state. Simon Black, for example, while born in Qld would be eligible for WA because he moved there quite young. (For the same reason Tasmanian born Nick Reiwoldt would be Queensland eligible.) The last eligibility rules used were based on where the player lived for the majority of their time in a certain age bracket (I think it was between ages 11 and 16, but am not sure on that). There had been earlier rules which allowed for players playing in a state to be eligible for that state. As a result, some players ended up paying for more than one state (Carey played for NSW and SA, Dunstall played for Vic and Qld/NT). Eligibility was always a problem issue, but eventually a system came into place where each player had only one state.
matt
Guest
the corner shop burgers taste better then mcdonalds burgers
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Pot Stirrer, You've never started a reasonable debate with me. From your end its been a continual stream of mistuths, half-truths and outright fabrications.
JasonA
Roar Rookie
Yeah its all theoretical. It's just a good way to see how far the game has come in the northern states. I predict that in 5 - 10 years the QLD and NSW/ACT zones will be twice as strong thanks to the NEAFL and academy systems of the Suns, Lions, Swans and Giants.
JasonA
Roar Rookie
ah thanks for the heads up, did not know Mohr was Taswegian. Thought he was from Melbourne, being a scorpions product, but hes originally from the isle. I would say he would be in for sure.
Brewski
Roar Rookie
Sydney boys Jarrod Witts and Tom Young from Collingwood are by all accounts going to be good, and there is about 9 NSW/ACT boys from GWS that have played this year, they may have been better players than the ones that have been chosen, on the bench anyway. Qld teams always have plenty of height. Witts apparently is Sandilands type proportions.
TomC
Guest
Simon Black is from Western Australia. He was very young when he left Mount Isa. Not realistic to include him in a QLD SOO side. He'd want to play for WA.
Jaceman
Guest
I note it was a NSW/ACT team which is more accurate than the NRL version. BTW Inglis played senior footy on the Central Coast but magically became a Qlder so it loses nearly all my respect as far as eligibility goes although I will watch it because its Wednesday night with no opposition hence bound to get big numbers. But the club comp does suffer although it gives the NRL the chance to even up the comp by weaker sides playeing the understrength sides during SOO time (Check the draw although the AFL has done something similar with GCS and GWS). However even my super keen NRL mates are over the SOO NSW hype this past week which may mean bigger tears if they lose......
tonysalerno
Roar Guru
It sounds like a good idea on paper but it wouldn't work. After having a look at your teams i think NSW would beat Queensland... Man, i've been wanting to say that for the last six years; hopefully tomorrow changes that and the Blues can beat the Maroons.
Max
Guest
Yay for another NRL vs AFL bashing