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You knew this article was coming; I knew this article was coming. I just didn’t expect to be writing it myself until the ‘encouragement’ arrived in my inbox recently.
Every year it happens. Around State of Origin time, the ‘royal we’ in the rugby community have the discussion on whether the Origin format could or should be applied to rugby in Australia.
If you can’t quite set your watch by it, you can certainly mark it in the calendar well in advance.
There’s a multitude of reasons as to why it will probably never happen.
For much the same reason that the concept was scrapped in the AFL, a national presence and producing players from states and a territory outside the traditional combatants means that the simple New South Wales vs Queensland model doesn’t quite fit, even though those states still supply the overwhelming majority of rugby players in Australia.
But the debate remains – so let’s at least look at some options.
Eligibility criteria
It remains the biggest source of debate in League circles. As night follows day, every “Greg Inglis is a New South Welshman” comment earns a “Peter Sterling is a Queenslander” retort. The Australian Rugby League Commission last year tweaked the criteria to a more palatable model, but the jury will reserve judgement. Under the old rules, Steve Rogers technically should’ve played for Queensland, while son Mat technically should’ve played for NSW. Under the new rules, they both should’ve played for the same state, whichever one it is.
And this is all before we start catering for the New Zealanders. I’m sure the debate will go on.
So how could it work in rugby?
Place of birth? Possibly, but there would be some surprising outcomes. Melbourne-born Liam Gill would no longer be a Queenslander, Brett Sheehan and Drew Mitchell would become genuine New South Welshman, and Scott Higginbotham would find himself playing for Western Australia. And you’d inevitably end up with guys playing for states they spent very little time in.
Crucially though, make place of birth the determining factor, and you immediately rule out the likes of Will Genia, Quade Cooper, David Pocock, Stephen Moore, Kyle Godwin, the Timanis, and a surprisingly large number of others.
You might suggest ‘Aussies vs Foreigners’ but just going by the number of players born in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, I don’t think that would paint Australian rugby in a favourable light at all. Or end well.
Schoolboy/Senior rugby? In League circles, senior schoolboy level is actually considered to be senior level, so that doesn’t necessarily help. Christian Lealiifano, for example, would be Victorian. And what of the young kids like James O’Connor or Matt Toomua who are recruited straight from school into a professional team interstate? Would they be Queenslanders, or respectively Western Australian and A-C-Territorian?
Super Rugby debut? Again, that possibly could work, but you might end up casting long term players from one side into a different team under Origin format. Tim Davidson has played in Melbourne for two seasons or more, but made his debut for the Western Force. Ben Mowen played more than 40 games for the Waratahs, and more than twenty now for the Brumbies, but made his Super Rugby debut in his one and only appearance for the Reds.
Berrick Barnes has been with the Waratahs for a long time now, but still hasn’t quite played more games in a Tahs jersey than he did in a Reds one.
Either way, the eligibility is probably the easier of the problems to sort out. The real deal breaker might be what shape ‘Rugby Origin’ takes…
What format?
For reasons already outlined, a rugby version of State of Origin can’t just be a simple NSW-Queensland thing. “Of course it can,” I hear the parochial types in those states saying already! And maybe it can, for now, but it would eventually become an unworkable model. At some point in time, despite the denials and questions of worth that already exist, Victoria and Western Australia will produce genuine home-grown Wallabies.
Seven and eight year-olds in Perth will one day grow up and follow their current-day idol, Kyle Godwin, from local schoolboys to the Force and all the way to the Wallabies. There has been a trickle of Canberra born-and-bred kids do this already, and it will happen in Melbourne one day, too.
What fits now – mostly – won’t always be the case.
North West v South East? The best of Queensland and Western Australia taking on the best of NSW, the ACT, and Victoria? Maybe, but it has a kind of artificial feel about it. And try telling Brumbies supporters they have to get behind Waratahs players.
NSW v Everyone else? The cynics and Queenslanders (and dare I say it, cynical Queenslanders) will say this is already the case in Australian rugby, so why not formalise the idea and move hating New South Wales from the metaphorical to the literal?
GPS Schooled v Public? You’re right, I am just taking the piss now.
Should New Zealand have an Island of Origin?
Absolutely. The Wednesday night before a Bledisloe Test ideally. And with mandatory All Black participation. And to the death, if possible…
In all seriousness, the State of Origin format just isn’t that good a fit for rugby in Australia. The old State of the Union clashes were scrapped because the advent of Super Rugby made them redundant.
One day, I would perhaps like to see the Australian conference winners taking on a ‘best of the rest’ selection, but the timing for such a match would be difficult. It would have to be after Super Rugby finished, but before the Wallabies got serious, in which case the Wallaby coach of the day would almost certainly want their players excluded.
And as the quest to find an eligibility model highlights, as soon as you start excluding the best players, it becomes a pointless exercise.
But then again, pointless exercises often create the most interesting discussions.