Queensland will win Origin again and I couldn't care less

The rugby league world is abuzz about State of Origin right now. Next Wednesday the 37th contest that started as “state against state, mate against mate” in 1980 will kick off at ANZ Stadium in Sydney.

To say that it is an enormous part of the Australian sporting landscape is equivalent to saying Shane Warne was a pretty good cricket player or that he may be better suited to a low profile post cricket.

They are all massive understatements.

Just look at the top five rated TV programs of 2015:
1. State of Origin 2
2. Rugby League grand final
3. State of Origin 1
4. AFL grand final
5. State of Origin 3

That tells you all you need to know. Three of the top five most watched programs in 2015 – Australia-wide – were the State of Origin games. All of them peaked at over 4.5 million viewers minimum. This is up from 2014 when the three games were ranked fifth, seventh and 18th.

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The contest is just getting bigger.

The three matches are now the Australian equivalent of the NFL’s Superbowl. They command a massive audience that in turn command massive advertising and sponsorship dollars. Even the NRL and AFL grand finals now take lesser billings.

Sure enough, next Wednesday night I’ll switch on Channel Nine at 7.30pm and watch all of their endless pre-game build-up that even the superb Yvonne Sampson and Peter Sterling can’t make bearable, before the kick-off finally happens some time around 8.35pm – the broadcaster having stretched out the event as long as they could to get more advertising dollars.

After it is over I’ll hit my keyboard and belt out my opinion of what we have just watched.

But here’s the thing: I really couldn’t give a rats ass about State of Origin and I haven’t for a long time now. It has long since come to symbolise only hollow hype and money-making to me.

Why? The reasons are many and varied.

Back in the 1980s I loved Origin as much as anyone and hung out for each year’s series. There was no question that I was a NSW supporter.

Firstly, I hated Wally Lewis. I desperately yearned for the likes of Brett Kenny or Sterling to upstage him and send him back north of the border with his tail between his legs – something that rarely happened. He was a bloody good footballer, probably the best I’ve ever seen.

However, then the lines began to blur for me. When Mal Meninga turned up in 1986 at the Raiders with the likes of Gary Belcher, Steve Walters, Peter Jackson and Sam Backo in tow my team suddenly had a lot of Queenslanders in it.

Whereas I previously found it easy to wish for the physical destruction of the players in maroon, I now found that quite difficult. In fact, I waited every match for Steve Walters to seek out Benny Elias when the inevitable stink broke out and I had no doubt of the result I wanted there.

It really took the edge of state versus state hatred out of the game for me.

Nonetheless, in the early ’90s a whole group of us would board a charter bus from Canberra and head up the Hume to watch the matches at the SFS. The aisle of the bus was lined with eskys that you had to walk over to get to your seat.

By the time we reached the SFS we would have been refused service by any self-respecting establishment. Apparently I was there for the Mark Coyne try in 1994. For me, it wasn’t about the game, or the result, or the rivalry. It was about the event. The party. I was in my 20s after all.

Even then my ambivalence regarding the result was appearing. During one of those matches Meninga broke the line in front of me. Before I knew it I was instinctively on my feet yelling “MAAAAAAAAAAL!”.

A hail of cans, cups and food rained down on me in my Raiders jersey with Walters’ signature on it (the very same jersey that had confused the hell out of the drunken Queenslanders in the north-east standing area of the old Lang Park a year earlier) and my mates quickly pulled me down and told me to shut the hell up.

However, I still looked forward to the spectacle and was nominally a NSW supporter.

Then came the Super League war where Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch fought over the broadcast rights and we supporters, our beloved teams and our players were the pawns.

When Ken Arthurson and John Quayle ensured no Super League contracted player took part in the 1995 series it made the contest nothing to do with state versus state. It was then just a corporate event. If the best players from each state weren’t playing then it meant nothing at all.

When Laurie Daley, who was a superb captain and leader (and, yes, a Raider), was displaced as NSW captain in 1996 in favour of ARL loyalist Brad Fittler I was further alienated.

In 1998, the Queensland team (and the Kangaroos team) was effectively the Brisbane Broncos side. That blurred the boundaries further. Watching the Broncos became like watching Queensland every week. It further diluted my anticipation for the yearly contest. Whereas I’d always gathered with mates at the pub to watch the games, now I sat at home and watched by myself.

Any thoughts I had that I was a NSW fan all but disappeared with the ‘bonding session’ before Game 1 of the 2004 series where, as I understand it, every player was given a few grand and told to go out and ‘bond’. This resulted in the following answering machine message (among other things):

“[Lady’s name] where the f*** are you? There’s four toey humans in the cab it’s twenty to four. Our c**** are fat and f****** ready to spurt sauce, and you’re in bed. F*** me fire up, you sad c***.”

While I still couldn’t bring myself to go for Queensland, those idiots weren’t getting my support.

By 2006 Queensland, although it now seems unbelievable, were the underdogs. Raiders Clinton Schifcofske and Adam Mogg getting the call-up for the Maroons had me actively supporting Queensland for the first time.

However, when they did win I knew they weren’t mine and I wasn’t theirs.

The eight-peat then bored the hell out of me. The NSW ineptitude and Queensland dominance was about as interesting to me as watching the same five sides playing in virtually all the grand finals since 1998 has been.

While I was pleased that NSW won in 2014, I was as far away as I’d ever been from donning an electric blue fright wig and getting stuffed in the bad seats at either end of the ground, the ones the corporate vultures didn’t want, for $100 a pop.

As I lamented back in 2014, the ticket allocations and prices are appalling. While it has got better, now they are having a tough time selling out ANZ Stadium.

In 2008, then New South Wales rugby league chief Geoff Carr bluntly stated that if the NSW fans didn’t vote with their feet (and wallets) and turn up then they’d sell the game elsewhere because they could make more money.

“When we get through these current run of contracts, the games are up for grabs. It would be great if the people of NSW voted with their feet… As much as we’d like to have two games in Sydney every second year, there’s pressure on us commercially because other governments are interested in this event.”

This stunned me. It meant that Origin was no longer about state versus state passion and busloads of parochial fans; it was pure and simply about money. It was reduced to being a money-making ‘event’ which were tied only to contracts.

The final nail in the coffin for me caring about State of Origin has been the eligibility issues. While the bending of the eligibility rules has a funny side to it (if you haven’t heard it already you must hear my friend Denis Carnahan‘s That’s in Queensland), State of Origin is now destroying international rugby league.

State of Origin matches are very well paid. Each player receives $30,000 per game, along with all sorts of other promotion opportunities no doubt. However, to play for Queensland or NSW you must be eligible to play for Australia. Lots of players don’t want to miss out on the prestige and pay day of playing in Origin so they find a way to declare themselves Australian.

Last month Fijian Semi Radradra – only an Australian resident – pulled on our national colours. Not only did it weaken the Fijian team, it cheapened ours. I’ll be surprised if Semi’s new almost-allegiance to this nation is not motivated by the chance to play State of Origin.

The whole thing makes the old premise of “state versus state, mate versus mate” a joke.

It reminds me of a scene from Monty Python’s classic Life of Brian.

Reg: If you want to join the People’s Front of Judea, you have to really hate the Romans.
Brian: I do!
Reg: Oh yeah, how much?
Brian: A lot!
Reg: Right, you’re in.

How much can a Fijian or Kiwi really hate a Cockroach or a Cane Toad? Do they even know what they are?

Should the new call be “Queenslander and associated maroon wearing players!”? (I’d say something about a NSW call but they’ve only really got “cattledog” and we know how that ended.)

Can there really be any true emotion in this match anymore if the origin of players can be so frequently be questioned and when the game is primarily considered an event to make money?

Is it not now nothing more than an All-Stars match?

Having seen the teams that were picked I’ve got little doubt that Queensland will win their tenth series in 11 years. However, I really couldn’t give a damn.