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Another Origin series has come and gone. It was great series, as usual, however, besides the usual bi-partisan complaining about referee decisions and other injustices, the one thing that seemed to dominate the headlines was, ironically, origin.
The player eligibility debate was a key component of this year’s series.
Among all the discussion, I took notice of one snippet in particular; the fact that the players, or maybe more specifically, the player managers, have a say in where his charge plays.
It seems many managers are advising their young “up ‘n’ comers” not to pledge an allegiance too early, basically saying “lets wait to see who has the better offer”!
This aspect and the recent arguments over the Kiwi contingent “pledging allegiance” is pretty much the last straw for me and a bunch of of other footy tragics from either side of the border. Besides the obviously horrendous (for NSW) injustice that Greg Inglis plays for Queensland, when he quite obviously should have been playing for NSW for the last 10 years or so, there have been numerous others on both side of the border.
No player is above the game and at the end of the day the game (league itself and therefore Origin) belongs to the people; not to clubs or administrators, players or even player managers. They are all custodians of the greatest game of all.
Therefore, it is time for the new ARLC to put an end to all of this nonsense and introduce from 2013 a new policy for selection in Origin. A policy that takes all politics, favouritism, player or player manager preference out of the equation. As with other things in life, a player should have to “qualify” for a state to play, and this qualification should not be as loose as it is now.
What about a points system, where a player needs to accumulate enough points to be eligible for selection? And not, like it is now, play one junior rep game for a state to be eligible. My suggestion would be that a player needs to accumulate a minimum of 10 points to qualify.
Points are allocated based on things like: place of birth (say five points), first junior club (5 points), first U15 rep game (5 points) first over 15 rep game (3 points) and so on. Many people smarter than me can come up with the criteria and points system but at least with a system like this we can stop the ridiculous situation we have now.
We have “Aussie” James playing for New Zealand one week and NSW the next, Greg “Bluey” Inglis and Israel “Westie” Folau playing for Queensland although both were born and played the great majority of their formative years of footy in NSW. It also takes the player manager and other self serving interests out of the equation.
It’s the people’s game and shouldn’t be held to ransom by self interest and political agendas like it is at the moment.
What do you think, Roarers? Is this a good solution for the eligibility debate?
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