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State of Origin is dead, buried and cremated in the AFL, and for good reason. But that doesn’t mean representative football as a concept should be.
From 2017, the AFL should include an All-Star Carnival in its celebration week before the start of finals.
I’m not a big rugby league man – probably due to my lack of geographic proximity to the code and familial upbringing that was very clear as to what constitutes footy – but from afar I can tell State of Origin is a pretty big deal in league circles.
So much so, in fact, that it has become something of a travelling circus. The second game of the 2019 Origin series is set to be played at the new Perth stadium, despite the State’s brief flirtation with rugby league winding up in 1997.
The AFL canned the concept in 1999, largely because of the AFL’s drive to create a more national competition effectively cannibalised its parochial fervour. A one-off, branded a Hall of Fame tribute match, was played in 2008 as part of the AFL’s centenary-and-a-half celebrations, which the Victorian side won over an all-state Dream Team 137 to 120.
Like a certain economic policy championed by the free market wing of the Liberal Party in Australia, the AFL has slapped the “dead, buried, cremated” sticker on a return to the idea. But that didn’t stop the annual flood of ‘2016 AFL State of Origin Teams’ and ‘Why We Need State of Origin in the AFL’ stories after this season’s NRL State of Origin.
Sorry folks, it ain’t coming back.
But that doesn’t mean representative football should continue to be cast off completely. Indeed, with the AFL’s post-Round 23 bye having morphed from “device to stop teams resting players in Round 23” to “celebration of football at all levels” at some point this year, there’s a window for something new and interesting.
Say what you will about the bye – that it is pointless, ineffective, a momentum killer, a gross over-reaction to a non-problem, the devil incarnate – it does certainly open up a world of possibilities for League HQ.
This season, they decided that in the weekend off, Friday night would see the annual EJ Whitten Legend’s Game, and Saturday a Women’s Exhibition Match. Some fiddling with the dates of other end-of-season events has meant the slate in the 12 days between the end of Round 23 and the start of the finals series is somewhat full, but to me, there’s an opportunity to go farther.
The AFL should introduce an end-of-season All Star carnival.
Why? Because, well, why not? As it stands, there is no vehicle for the AFL’s best players to showcase their skills and abilities beyond their play on weekends throughout the season. There are no “higher honours” that represent anything other than words to be engraved on club honour boards once a career finishes.
The All Australian team in any given year is merely for name. Yes, the International Rules series team is now only to comprise of players previously named All Australian, but that is besides the point.
Above all else, a celebration of Australian rules football, which is what this week off is now being sold as, deserves some sort of showcase of the best the game has to offer.
A drawback to doing this in the week between Round 23 and the first week of finals would be the dilution of the talent pool resulting from clubs preparing for finals sitting on the sidelines. That’s definitely a problem, but not one that kills the concept; there’s a stack of top shelf talent sitting on teams that won’t be participating in finals this year.
What would it involve? We can look to the NBA for answers here. There are many parallels between America’s pro basketball league and the AFL: the athleticism required, the spectacular highlights, and a strong balance between team and individual. The NBA’s All-Star weekend has a number of events spread over a weekend, which culminate in a game played between two teams (one representing each conference) that are mostly voted for by the league’s fans.
Events in the lead up include a dunk contest, skills contest, three point contest, celebrity all-star game and a rookie all-star game. In the end, the all-star game itself has become something of a lesser event when compared to the more discrete competitions.
The AFL could do something similar to this – its not like the AFL to pinch concepts from American sports and shoehorn them in, right? – with a focus on discrete events leading into some kind of showcase game.
There are a plethora of possibilities with the discrete events: a goal kicking competition, a marking contest, a skills contest centred on hitting targets by hand and foot. Fox Footy has already dipped its toe into these waters, with their ‘Longest Kick’ competition on grand final day last year.
(I thought it was an excellent concept that was executed well, and is something that I hope Fox brings back this year)
That could run on the Friday night post Round 23. The EJ Whitten Legends Game can remain part of these festivities, given many of those that line up are already more from the world beyond football, but it would shift to Saturday or Sunday. All of the state league finals can remain loosely tied to the concept, and retain their broadcast status in their local markets as will be the case this year.
The weekend would culminate in some form of condensed all-star game, pitting teams of 22 players selected from the non-finalists teams against each other in a shortened game, not unlike this season’s NAB Challenge where games lasted 120 minutes. To build some hype, the league might consider holding a draft like the NFL do for their Pro Bowl, with high profile “list managers” holding the reigns.
As an added incentive, players participating in the weekend could be paid some form of monetary bonus, carved from the rights to broadcast the festivities on TV and radio. Proceeds from the gate could be donated to charity, and the league could find any number of other ways to monetise the concept (‘Team Sheeds’ jumpers, anyone?).
This has been a whole lot of thinking aloud on my part. I’m interested in what you think. If the league has created this end of season bye, and has now crab-walked their way to calling it an end of season celebration week, why don’t we do some actual celebrating of what makes the AFL the best sporting league in the country?