If the objective of the City versus Country clash is to hold a genuine State of Origin try out for NSW, then let’s make it one.
Every year we hear the same debate about whether the game is still important.
People like myself like it, others, for example the Daily Telegraph‘s Phil Rothfield, think it is just an excuse for Origin bolters to be injured.
I believe the game does have merit as an Origin trial and it could be better utilised to achieve this by scrapping the City versus Country concept, but not the game itself.
By splitting the selection pool for NSW into city and country teams, you restrict who can be picked for either team.
This means players, in particular the halves, could be restricted from playing with each other, and gaining experience and familiarity with each other.
There are a number of different ways you could structure the sides so that players could gain valuable experience playing against a level of competition higher than the average NRL game.
The NSW coach, Laurie Daley, could appoint the coaches, grooming one of them to be his eventual replacement. He could teach them the system the Blues will play with, and generally establish continuity within the NSW program.
There could be a NSW A and NSW B side, where players in the A side are the reserves, and the B side would be the reserves for the A side.
You could simply pick sides with the future of NSW in mind, and try to identify future play making combinations and give them a run together once a year.
It could simply be an excuse to give Origin bolters a chance to play against a higher level of competition, without throwing them into the cauldron that is Origin.
The ability to develop halves partnerships, something NSW has clearly struggled with over the entirety of our drought, is what made me think of this idea as I watched Sunday’s match.
Adam and Josh Reynolds, for example, have widely been touted as the play making future of the Blues. This year they played together for the first time in the City side.
Hopefully, these two stay together, irrespective of short term form slumps. Sides should not be picked purely on who has been hot over the first few weeks of the NRL season, as has been the case over the past few years.
Last year Adam partnered Curtis Sironen for City, the year before that it was Jarryd Hayne and Mitchell Pearce in the halves, and the year before that it was Pearce and Kris Keating.
The Country halves have been a bit more settled with Jarrod Mullen partnering a different player each year since 2011.
Mitchell Pearce, as we all know, has been the incumbent NSW halfback for a few years now. But he hasn’t partnered any of the five-eighths he played with in the City side, for NSW.
Part of the reason is because he was not eligible to play alongside them. James Maloney, Todd Carney and Jamie Soward all play for Country.
If the eligibility rules were to be scrapped and teams picked purely based on NSW eligibility, Pearce could have played alongside all three.
Now in Pearce’s case, he already played with Carney and Maloney at club level, so one game apart wasn’t going to hurt him, but it could benefit future partnerships.
Even guys that are successful together at club level could gain experience playing with teammates they aren’t used to.
Albert Kelly and Aidan Sezer could play alongside their future Blues team mates for example, not merely their Titans ones.
So could Adam Reynolds and John Sutton, if it was decided Josh Reynolds wasn’t up to scratch.
Or Josh could play alongside Trent Hodkinson; Mitchell Pearce could even play alongside James Maloney.
Or you could partner Sutton and Mullen, or any other combination you cared to, in case selectors decide to drop both incumbent halves or they became injured.
The hookers picked for this year’s game are yet another reason why the format should change.
This year we saw Beau Falloon and Mitch Rein start at hooker for City and Country, and unless one of them is a shock admission, I think it is fair to say they probably won’t get picked for NSW this year.
Robbie Farah’s most likely replacement, Michael Ennis, didn’t feature. Neither did former Blues captain Kurt Gidley. Neither of them are listed as injured by their clubs.
We saw Michael Lichaa come off the bench for City, and he ended up having a pretty good game, but he isn’t even the first choice hooker in his club team right now.
Lichaa, who plays NSW Cup, got picked, yet Shaun Fensom, the man who currently holds the record for most tackles in an NRL game, could only make 18th man in the Country side.
Scrapping the City versus Country concept doesn’t have to take the game away from the bush though.
The game could stay in the bush, but the rules could simply be modified to put on a great show for all the fans, while also preparing some of NSW’s future players for an Origin jersey.
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