Administrators must urgently re-think match scheduling during State of Origin to lessen the impact on NRL clubs providing elite players to the series, according to selector and former Queensland great Gene Miles.
However, the former Brisbane skipper remains opposed to extending the season to accommodate stand-alone Origins on weekends with club games suspended.
NRL heavyweights Melbourne and Brisbane continue to pay a steep price for handing over their stars to Origin duty while clubs with limited involvement, Canterbury and South Sydney, are flying towards the finals.
“I still think Origin should be played midweek,” Miles told AAP as its toll became even more evident after further weekend upsets.
“But there has to be a lot more thought given to clubs providing greater numbers to Origin playing the following weekend.”
“I love the tradition of midweek Origins and I don’t think we can afford to extend the season another three weeks.”
Brisbane and Melbourne have clashed for the past three years straight after brutal Origin games.
Clashes between both clubs and Manly have also lost some of their blockbuster attraction when Origin players have been rested.
“I know, emotionally and physically, it takes a lot out of you and probably a lot more these days,” said Miles who played 23 Origins for Queensland during the 1980s.
“They (administrators) have a rough idea of the core group of players Queensland have used over the last four or five years.
“They should take a good look at fixtures during that six to eight-week period around Origin when they do their season draw.
“Fans paying their hard earned through the gate want and should see the game’s superstars in action.”
The competition ladder has changed dramatically during rounds 11 to 21.
Melbourne, who provided big guns Billy Slater, Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Dane Nielsen (for game three) have slumped from first to third with five successive losses.
The Broncos, who handed over six stars — five of them forwards — have slipped out of the top four, losing four of their past six games, including Monday night’s embarrassing 42-22 defeat to last-placed Parramatta.
However, Brisbane chief executive Paul White said the Broncos didn’t want to use their heavy involvement in the Origin series as an excuse.
“We handled it (Origin) well last year and we probably should be doing better,” he said.
“I know the league are constantly reviewing it.”
Cronulla are battling to recover from Paul Gallen and Todd Carney playing Origin.
Gallen pushed himself with a bad knee injury to play Origins II and III while Carney’s confidence wasn’t helped by a gut-wrenching 21-20 game-three series loss.
Results of teams during Origin highlight the toll the intense series takes on players.
In a 10-week period when 20 competition points were on offer, Melbourne picked up just eight and Brisbane 10.
By comparison, the Bulldogs, with only Josh Morris involved in the interstate series, scored a perfect 20 points with eight straight wins and two byes to charge from seventh to first five weeks out from the finals.
South Sydney, who had only Greg Inglis and Dave Taylor contest Origin, were the other big movers, climbing from sixth to second with 16 points in the same period.
Ladder (11 rounds) Ladder (21 rounds)
1 – Melbourne (20 pts) Canterbury (32 pts)
2 – Brisbane (16) South Sydney (30)
3 – North Queensland (14) Melbourne (28)
4 – Manly (14) North Queensland (26)
5 – Cronulla (14) Brisbane (26)
6 – South Sydney (14) Manly (26)
7 – Canterbury (12) Cronulla (25)
8 – Wests Tigers (12) Gold Coast (22)
9 – Warriors (10) Newcastle (22)
10 – Newcastle (10) Wests Tigers (22)
11 – St George Illawarra (10) St George Illawarra (22)
12 – Canberra (10) Warriors (20)
13 – Sydney Roosters (10) Canberra (20)
14 – Gold Coast (8) Sydney Roosters (17)
15 – Penrith (6) Penrith (16)
16 – Parramatta (4) Parramatta (14).Big movers:
Canterbury 7th to 1st
South Sydney 6th to 2nd
Gold Coast 14th to 8th.Big Losers:
Melbourne 1st to 3rd
Brisbane 2nd to 5th
Cronulla 5th to 7th.Number of Origin representatives during the 2012 series:
Brisbane – 6
Manly – 5
Melbourne – 4
North Queensland – 4
St George Illawarra – 4
Gold Coast – 3
Penrith – 3
Cronulla – 2
South Sydney – 2
Newcastle – 2
Canterbury – 1
Parramatta – 1
Sydney Roosters – 1
Wests Tigers – 1
Canberra – 1
Tony Archers Maroon Underwear
Guest
If you really need Origin (substance free ad revenue machine for News ltd) make it a one game a year same weekend as Aus V NZ, whats more meaningful..your country or tribal cup glory or promotional hype machine market share boost for TAB, VB and BS. Club footy is real football culture and unless it is embraced it will die. That is what the Origin will do to club football, kill it for bundy rum adds and sports-bet, these vampires have already sunk their teeth in. Origin is removed of real relevance from peoples lives and is largely a preprogrammed spectacle devised to extract maximum coin from an unsuspecting public which we've all been megaphoned into believing is best for RL. But it aint, best thing for RL is to have the National RL club championship as the premier athletic sporting achievement in the country. A BS staged event like Origin tonly detracts from the real cultural relevance of club footy.
Adam Everitt
Guest
If you play SOO games on stand along weekends, why not just remove the round 10 to 18 byes that the NRL currently implement?
Bazzio
Roar Guru
1. Origin is great. Keep it. 2. Origin ref's show bias toward Qld. EVERY YEAR. Start a ref advisement programme during origin games using video ref calls. 3. Melbourne is NOT an origin venue. It's NSW v Qld. Not Mexicans. 4. Origin ruins contributing clubs premiership chances and gives others a free ride in. Clubs that provide 2 or more origin players should be compensated somehow ~ perhaps by allowing extra reserve players for the game following Origin, or an extra bye.
jdubya
Guest
HA you are starting to sound like the QLDers after they lost 3 in a row. BAN ORIGIN, WE DON'T LIKE LOSING Origin is brilliant and as a New South Welshman I will keep coming back again and again for more punishment.
Briskat
Guest
I guess you are all from NSW.
Johnno
Guest
oike some points. Maybe Griffith has no choice there is no depth of senior players anymore and i blame reserve grade demise for that. No david brooks or kevin hardwick types to step up or matt parish. -And oikee origin has got issues with the kiwi factor. Kiwis should not be welcomed into origin and stick and big mal should be ashamed of themselves for going after kiwis eg turncoat tamou and ben T'eo. -And clubs like melbourne and criag bellamy have rights origin is treating the games and teams like melbourne storm with contempt. My heart goes out to bellamy and the storm for the trouble they have to put up with, innocent victims who only strive to do the right thing by the game.
oikee
Guest
Most of these comments will be thrown in the bin. Origin is a level above club footy. Look, dont listen to guys who try to tell you origin is stupid, silly, has no meaning, bullocks. Its a level above Club footy and just below international footy. It also is the reason rugby league rates it socks off each year. It is talked about tribally as the best rivalry in the world and you guys want to mess with it. Like i said, most comments on here will go into the bin,. You never throw away a golden goose laying golden eggs. only a fool would do that. After Origin, which has the largest tribal support in Australia, their is no tribal game as big as Rugby League's Origin battles. It gets no bigger, 2 big states behind one team,each. Dont ever kid yourselves any sport 'can' or ever will be as big as Origin, it has a history that can never be repeated. So forget about, it, you lose origin that is it, you have lost a national treasure, a game the world will be intrigued with over the next 20 years. It is like having the last of the mohekins in your hands, and cutting his head off because you dont like Mochekins. :) Never mess with Origin, anyone who does, dismiss him or her out of hand. It took over 30 years of non believers, people wishing it to fail, people not even bothered to care. All of a sudden it has become this golieth, and we all want to try to come up with ways of killing it off. Over my cold dead hands as Charlton Heston would say. Leave it alone and go about your business, nothing to see here. A monday night would be ok, as long as the preceiving weekend is full of other games, internationls, City Countries, Junior Origins,NZ origin whatever. Until then we keep status quo. We have built something special, lets not destroy it by trying to love it to death. The reason the Broncos are suffering is too many kids in the team. The coach has got to wake up to this, Bennett had the same issues yet he always used senior players to replace senior players, only threw juniors in once in a blue moon for experience, Griffith is playing them every week, most are now spent.
Luke M
Guest
Agreed on pretty much all except getting rid of salary cap. I would like to see it modified a bit to see clubs rewarded for developing their own players and actually get to keep them. However, getting rid of it completely will give us the scenario of every major soccer league, where the same 3 teams are on top year after year after year after boring year and get richer and more powerful while smaller clubs just become feeder teams. If you dont have Pay TV it must already feel like this as Brisbane and St George get the Friday games week after week after week. Don't get me wrong, I love the English Premier League but unless you are a Man U, Man City or Chelsea fan you are just making up the numbers. I especially agree with the gambling. Im sick and tired of being forcefed that idiot Munsie every freaking chance they can get. God forbid the NRL decides to have a twitter presence, im sick of hearing that bloody word!
NF
Guest
Johnno I'm curious why do you care about RL all of sudden considering you got banned for saying various bad things about in the past which caused you to be banned. As for Origin, for all the good it does for ratings,etc is also causes harm to the NRL so it's a double-edge sword pretty much.
Johnno
Guest
TAMU i agree with all that origin is a farce and it is devaluing testy footy and club footy too. . , except i disagree with 1 point keep monday night footy. It does rate for foxtel and brings in money and the media networks fund the game so need that precious dollar$$$$. Sports betting has it's place to just is so dependant on it right now. And poker mating tax hurts the clubs too. Reducing the season i agree with 2. Plus making NSW cup and QLD cup strong too. I want the nRL to go to super rugby style conference format more local derbies and have like 5 teams in QLD. 2nd brisbane team, and SE QLD eg rockhampton team. heck go 6 have 1 at Ipswich too.
Tony Archers Maroon Underwear
Guest
Origin is a farce if you really have to have it, make it one game, on the same weekend as the ANZAC test and city country The NRL needs to protect and promote the value of its premiership so as to become the ultimate sporting title in this country. If I had my way id Get rid of Golden Point Get rid of Origin Get rid of the salary Cap Get rid of Monday night football Get rid of byes Get rid of high shots Break the habit / association / dependence the game has developed on gambling Bring back Reserve grade comp Reduce season to 21/22 games its too long as is Make it easier ($) for family's to attend matches Play Saturday afternoon games. Teams There should be at least two new and one less Sydney team. (Sharks Im thinking its you). To be replaced by an additional QLD team (definitely not a Perth team yet) and either another NZ team or a Nth Coast NSW team
tonysalerno
Roar Guru
Good article mate, some very good statistics that display a dower picture. The evidence is there- clubs are experiencing an origin hangover while sides less represented are taking advantage... although we all didn't need statistics to tell us that; even blind freddy knew.
turbodewd
Guest
Youre spot on. 20 rounds is probably the NRL sweet spot. Spread over 23 weeks with 3 gaps for Origin.
turbodewd
Guest
Thats not a bad idea at all, Id want the previous saturday and sunday to be free of NRL games though.
Fivehole
Guest
Shorten the season - its too long now as it stands. AFL has it about right. NFL goes for quality over quantity - why not NRL?
Dayer
Guest
I totally agree, Johnno .... make Test matches the pinnacle instead of SOO. What is the big fuss about SOO when it is going to be full of "aliens" in the future, so to speak. Make SOO stand alone and bring other REP games to fill in the stand alone weekend
Matt F
Roar Guru
I agree with the stand-alone weekend although the TV networks will ensure that it would be played on Sunday night instead of Saturday. I'm sure they could create room for stand alone Oririn games without extending the season too much if they looked hard enough. Getting rid of the stand-alone Test match and City/Country weekend (or move the test to the end of the season) will clear one week and the fact that teams would get 3 weeks off with under stand alone origin weeks would mean that you could get rid of the two byes. Maybe give each team one bye so that the Origin players get at least one break in there somwehere. Wrost case scenario the season is extended by one week, which is reasonable.
peeeko
Roar Guru
i do think origin could be played on a monday night, giving teams that have players backing up 4-7 days until their next game if they dont have a bye
turbodewd
Guest
Origin must be on saturday night. A dedicated weekend for it so the club games dont get utterly hidden. We need to slice a few rounds off the NRL regular season, 24 rounds over 26 weeks is too many. I mean it will let people party on saturday and not have to worry about working the next day. Also, this timeslot is schoolkid friendly. It is worrying to see NRL crowds down badly this year. They can be improved so easily. One measure is to put Origin on a dedicated weekend. I mean this year after Origin 1 Melbourne hosted the Broncos. How many Melb RL fans can we expect to attend Origin on wednesday then attend another game a few days later. The Storm-Broncos game was half ruined, no air time, no chance to attract fans. It should have gotten 20,000...it got far far less.
steve b
Roar Guru
What a bloody joke extend the season by two weeks ,,spread the times between each game and make them stand alone weekends,, their is no other answer to make it fairer on players and clubs,,and forget about the people who say oh but only one game on the weekend ,,what are we going to do ,, go fishing do something with your family get a life !