It’s tough being a Queenslander, known for our bubbly personalities, friendliness, hard-working attitudes and our ability to always find ways to have fun along the way.
But most importantly, we are incredibly passionate about whatever we do in life, including rugby league.
So it’s no surprise then that the 2013 series has been approached with the same passion and vigour that has been used since the beginning in 1980.
It’s been eight years since Darren Lockyer swooped on an errant pass late in the game three decider in Melbourne to seal a memorable Queensland win, the first of many to come, but we were just happy we’d finally won it, it had been far too long.
The build up to that series was, in hindsight, bordering on despicable. NSW media writing copious stories boasting and making the claim that victory in the 2006 series would see Origin “die”.
How wrong were they?
Eight years on, they haven’t won a series, gone 6-15 in games, and were even whitewashed in 2010.
Not once in those seven years has anyone from Queensland claimed another series win would spell the death of Origin, and we’re not about to start now.
Teams for game one have been named, and the media is having a field day already.
But you don’t see the Queensland media panning the selections of coach Meninga, instead there will be praise of his forward thinking.
Inspired selections of Daly Cherry Evans and Josh Papalii to get them around the team and now as possible cover for JT and Ben Te’o.
Chris McQueen on the bench offering versatility. It’s a team compiled by a man who knows what he’s doing and has the full backing of his state.
Now we look at NSW. Disaster strikes just 24 hours after team is named with Kurt Gidley being ruled out with a foot injury, numerous articles on who wasn’t picked, why weren’t they picked, how dare they not pick him.
Now I understand New South Wales is on edge a little, lose and it’s eight in a row. But when Queensland never looked like winning, we got behind our team, we backed the selections, we got excited.
But now that the roles are reversed since the early 2000s, Queensland is taking a much different approach to origin then what New South Wales did. We enter the series with excitement, confidence, but respect that we face a formidable foe once again.
We won’t go around saying Origin is dead, because we’re too busy being excited to be conceited
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