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52-6. It should be a Blues recurring nightmare, an unwanted record that might just survive for a few decades to come.
Of course, for it to be a recurring nightmare, New South Wales has to actually care about the annual interstate series. And I’m beginning to suspect they don’t.
I am beginning to suspect that collectively, the team, the players, the State, is over it. There should have been a pall over the place in the aftermath of Queensland’s demolition of the Blues at Lang Park on Wednesday night.
In my neck of the woods, people just sort of shrugged their shoulders and said, “What about that Tour de France?”
Let’s be honest, the history of State of Origin is something of a social construct. It was developed to save an interstate series that had become so horribly lop-sided, the scoreboard attendants threatened strike action for unsafe work practices.
Given all of the best players in Queensland migrated south to play in the richer NSWRL premiership, it was not surprising Queensland were shellacked every year.
Until Senator Ron had an idea, and Artie Beetson was picked from Parramatta reserve grade to captain his “home” state, and… well, you know the rest.
The point is, State of Origin was developed to save Queensland. And it did, as they got their home-grown players back, an entire state breathed in the injustice of what had gone on in the past, and a mindset was born. It took half a decade for NSW to catch on that this was serious.
While not turning full circle, the concept of Origin was always all about Queensland. Their recent dominance has come on the back of an insanely talented playing group – Queensland’s very own golden-maroon generation. Greg Inglis, Cam Smith, Billy Slater, Justin Hodges, Johnathan Thurston, Cooper Cronk, Sam Thaiday et al have been like the rugby league perfect storm and while they can’t go on forever, they keep getting written off.
Apart from what seems like a blip in 2014, they keep on proving those south of the border wrong. New South Wales gets a win, thinks all is good, and continually forgets that in Queensland, there is nothing bigger than Origin. Not a Test match, not a grand final, nothing.
Case in point? Billy Slater ended his season playing Origin. It was more important to him than any other game.
I may be wrong, but if you took a poll of Queensland fans from their three NRL clubs and posed the question – would you rather see the Broncos/Cowboys/Titans win the premiership or Queensland win State of Origin, a Maroons victory would be the preferred choice for the majority. Ask that same question of NSW-based clubs and I bet you’d get a totally different response. Personally, as a Sea Eagles tragic, I could cope with Queensland rolling NSW every year if I got to see Manly win the grand final.
I’m sure the Blues players enjoy getting together in camp, love the hype and the stage of Origin. But while they might like it, Queenslanders live and breathe it.
That was so obvious on Wednesday night when Queensland played a brand of league that had me cheering for that Johnathan Thurston try-that-wasn’t, and had a fellow Blues fan all of 12 years old saying, “I wanna see them get to 60.”
They were as good as NSW were totally awful. You get the sense that if the result had happened in reverse, there wouldn’t have been too much of a different reaction in the Blue state. But there would have been a week of mourning in Queensland, and the posting of calendars on walls marking exactly how many days it would be until State of Origin I, 2016, and a chance for sweet revenge.
The simple fact is, Origin was made for Queensland. And they care about it a whole lot more than New South Wales seem to.
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