As a Blues fan, I reserve the right to be whiny whenever we lose to Queensland at Suncorp.
Given our track record over the last decade, having a bit of a whine has actually become a defence mechanism. It’s something we do to distract ourselves from losing.
Over the last year or two, however, I’ve felt a different kind of frustration at the Maroons’ dominance.
In part, it’s a critical mass thing. After ten years – or almost ten years – of being pummelled, you get a bit sick of searching for the perfect strategy or the perfect combination.
At the same time, it really feels as if Queensland have graduated into true blue (unfortunate wording, I know) immortals.
In large part, that is because so many Maroons – Greg Inglis, Johnathan Thurston, Smith, Cooper Cronk, Billy Slater – are reaching the last phase in their careers, the period during which they’re going to be canonised and sedimented as immortals.
Sure, Slater may never play another Origin game in his life, but his absence has just made the other two members of Melbourne’s big three feel even more precious.
In one way or another, it feels as if all the key members of the Queensland squad are now facing a fixed Origin lifespan.
Dual retirement announcements from Corey Parker and Thurston in the buildup to last night’s game at Suncorp just intensified the feeling that we are witnessing a special turning point for this generation of Queenslanders.
It doesn’t help, too, that the hijinks at the Emerging Maroons camp earlier in the year means that descendants like Ben Hunt and Anthony Milford are still relegated to the wings.
All of that has created an even greater sense – if that were possible – that we are witnessing history in the making with this particular Queensland outfit.
With their achievements on the verge of passing into history, their current status and stature in the game has become even more intimidating to the Blues.
Realistically speaking, then, what is the likelihood that any team could beat the Maroons as they now stand?
If you look at this year’s Kangaroos squad, 13 out of the 18 players have worn the Maroons jersey, four have worn the Blues jersey and Semi Radradra wasn’t eligible for Origin in the first place (although you can bet he would have taken advantage of any loophole to have a shot at it).
On top of that, the most indispensable players in the team – Thurston, Cronk, Darius Boyd and (arguably) Inglis – are all Queenslanders (let’s leave the Macksville issue for another time), while Slater would obviously have been in contention as well if he hadn’t been out for the season.
Perhaps it’s time, then, to state the obvious: Queensland’s running streak simply stems from the fact that most of the very best players in the game at the moment happen to have been born north of the border.
After years of media speculation as to what the Blues are doing wrong, I just feel like calling it: Queensland are lucky.
If you were going to make a best-of NRL side, it would have to include at least two-thirds of the players currently wearing the Maroons jersey.
That’s not to say, of course, that Queensland haven’t capitalised on their strengths, nor that outlier players, such as Dane Gagai, haven’t taken advantage of Origin to build their game to the next level.
Nor is it to say that New South Wales couldn’t have made better selections or employed more vision or discipline.
It’s just to register a certain weariness about all the endless speculation as to why New South Wales can’t beat the best players in the game, as well as a certain weariness about Queenslanders acting like the best players in the game winning year after year is some kind of massive achievement.
In effect, the Blues have taken on the Kangaroos for the last half-decade. In that kind of stand-off, who would you expect to win?
In many ways, then, Origin has become something of a prophecy of how a fully deregulated NRL – an NRL run along the lines of the NFL – might operate.
For what makes Origin so unique is the total arbitrariness of whether a player is born in New South Wales or Queensland. In a code like the NRL that is – at least officially – so anxious to maintain salary caps and regulate parity among its teams in terms of player assets, Origin is a real wild card in terms of where the talent happens to fall.
While it has sometimes panned out that both teams have a roughly equal stable of players, it can also create the kinds of wild disparities we’re seeing at the moment.
In effect, the Maroons are fortunate to have the kind of dream team that would only ever occur at the wealthiest club in a completely deregulated code.
While that makes a bit of a break from regular footy, and gives the Blues a real underdog quality, it also makes for a bit of a boring experience.
Over the last year or two, I’ve noticed that there are more and more calls to ditch, revise or relocate Origin, often from the very people who most staunchly defended its singularity in the first place.
While a lot of these concerns are reasonable, I see them as part of a growing sense that Origin is not necessarily a fair or even enjoyable sport when one team simply happens to have most of the best players in the country.
While I’m not sure that opening up Origin to international representation would work – I sit on the fence about it and change my mind a lot – the best argument for it so far is that it would go some way to remedying the stalemate we’ve seen over the last few years.
If all that makes me sound like a bit of a whiny Blues supporter, then I fully accept the charge.
All I can say is that I love most of the players on the Maroons side as well. Nobody can grudge Thurston, Cronk or Inglis a great moment on the field when they’re in form.
At the same time, however, I’m getting a bit tired of the incredulity and excitement that ferments every year whenever the top players in the country simply manage to beat a less prestigious team, especially in years like 2016 when a whole lot of young Blues are being blooded.
To be honest, I’d feel the same way if the Blues had all the best players as well. Sport needs a relatively even playing field to be really exciting.
While some people see the Maroons as intensifying their achievement each year, then, I see it as a victory lap that’s starting to get a bit tiresome.
Here’s hoping that talent is distributed a bit more evenly over the next generation of New South Welshmen and Queenslanders, since that’s when Origin works best as a spectacle.
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