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Since I was old enough to remember it’s stood like a colossus on the horizon at the point where autumn meets winter. No, not my birthday – State of Origin rugby league.
Relationships, careers and your tenuous grip on reality come and go, but State of Origin is always there to put things right.
And after 30 years at the coalface, I’ve gathered enough anecdotal evidence to support my claim that State of Origin is the greatest thing ever.
More State of Origin:
>> 2014 State of Origin 1 live scores
>> State of Origin draw and news, teams referees, results
>> State of Origin preview (VIDEO)
>> PRENTICE: Why NSW will win Game 1
>> PRICHARD: Why QLD will win Game 1
>> GURU: I sniff an Origin upset
>> TURNER: Behind the scenes of Origin preparation
It’s educational
As a seven-year-old in 1984, I learnt how to use the rewind button on our VCR (Google it, under-20s) so I could repeatedly take in every nuance of the brawl that opened State of Origin Game 2 in the SCG mud.
Towards the end of the ’80s, I learnt that when you’re sitting on the cement concourse at the old Lang Park, it’s perfectly acceptable to pelt beer cans at New South Wales fans. And if the referee is bold enough to sin bin Wally Lewis for sticking up for his mates, you can pelt them onto the field as well.
From watching my dad, I also learnt that televisions have a secret microphone installed in them, and that if you yell loud enough at what’s happening on screen, you might even be able to influence what’s happening at the ground. I was usually too tense to yell at the TV as a kid, all tangled up in nerves on the couch as the benevolent Wally and Geno and Alfie came up against the evil forces of Jack and Elias and Sironen, but now I give that microphone as good a go as anyone.
One day, a player might even hear me.
It turns otherwise sane humans into bloodthirsty savages
My mother and aunt are two regular middle-aged ladies whose hobbies include going to rockabilly dances and sewing funky dresses out of vintage fabric.
They’re also shocked and appalled that rugby league players are no longer allowed to swing fists at each other for fear of spending ten minutes cooling their heels on the bench while their team battles on without them.
Multiply that bloodlust by 40,000 and it’s hardly surprising that everyone at the Olympic Stadium was on their feet last year, hailing a bloke in blue who’d given a bloke in maroon two of his finest while the latter’s eyes were focused elsewhere.
On the mean streets of Kings Cross they’d condemn that as a coward punch attack. In the fever pitch of State of Origin rugby league, it’s a textbook brave stand.
It turns regular words into unquantifiable adjectives
Commentators throw around phrases like “that right there was an Origin play” or “he’s an Origin-type player” without Origin having any particular meaning, yet are still instantly understood by the viewers at home.
[roar_cat_gal]
Its pre-match hype is stupendously overblown
Rugby league’s host broadcaster cops plenty of stick from fans, much of it justified, but State of Origin is one time of the year the Nine Network comes into its own.
Until New South Wales eventually end this unprecedented era of Queensland dominance, Nine will happily declare every contest “the biggest game in Origin history”, until the subsequent game knocks it off its perch. If every NRL game had this much smoke blown up its posterior in the half hour before kickoff, a Titans-Raiders clash on two-hour delay would suddenly have parents pumping their kids full of energy drinks so they could go the distance on a Friday night.
Each telecast’s crowning glory? The Phil Gould pre-game monologue.
The earnestness of his on-field soliloquy, delivered straight down the lens of a tracking camera which highlights the vastness of that night’s coliseum, elevates Origin from a mere game of rugby league football to An Event Of Great National Import.
Hell, even I’d chuck on the sky blue after that. After four years as a New South Wales resident, I just about qualify.
Which brings me to…
It’s inclusive
Italians and New South Welshmen can play for Queensland. New Zealanders and former Queensland Residents can play for New South Wales. Even Papua New Guinea and Fiji have storied Origin histories every bit as rich as such noted Australian rugby league nurseries as Palmerston North and Kaitaia.
And by the good grace of the Nine Network, people outside of New South Wales and Queensland are also allowed to watch it live.
It’s the best banter you’ll have with opposition fans all year
And rubbing New South Wales faces in it is what Origin football is all about.
Queensland 2-1 #nineinarow
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