State of Origin is broken: Here's how to fix it

I read with great interest Mary Konstantopoulos’ article ‘Why do we care so much about State of Origin?‘.

The comments section was filled with passionate voices, many of which decried the impact Origin has on the club competition, and I can’t help but agree with them.

It feels as if six weeks of the competition is written off, with sides ravaged by the loss of representative players, bizarrely scheduled bye rounds and a loss of form often experienced by front-running teams.

This period robs fans of continuity, and I don’t think anyone is happy with the current state of affairs.

There are aspects of the current structure that cannot be changed. The NRL is not going to scrap any of the state of origin fixtures, and given the mid-week rating bonanza I can’t see the games being move from Wednesday – in any case, given the rights deal, it’s impossible not play club rugby league for a month.

So what should be done?

The whole period needs to be restructured, and here is how to do it.

Compress the Origin calendar
Keep Origin on Wednesday but play it over three consecutive weeks.

Create split bye rounds
Make the weekend before the first Origin game and weekend after the last Origin game as a split bye round so that there are four fixtures on each weekend. To ensure fairness no Origin players would be able to play in the round following the last Origin game.

This way each club would have only one game without their Origin players, minimising disruption and keeping things as fair as possible. The extra rest would help prevent player burnout for those playing in the Origin series.

Start the women’s rugby league competition
Start with eight teams playing on the weekend before the first State of Origin match. The teams would be split into two groups of four and the tournament would be contested over a month.

Each team in the group would play each other once, giving each team three fixtures each. The leader of each group would then play off in a grand final on the last weekend of the competition.

It would be ideal if the majority of these games could be shown on free-to-air. Channel Nine would have to get behind the competition as well.

Fill in the schedule with representative games
Teams to play could include New Zealand, Exiles (English players), Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji.

Were this to be undertaken this year, the schedule could look something like this:

Week 1: Starting Friday, 2 June

• Split bye round with four NRL games over the weekend (no state of origin players)
• Four games of NRL Women’s over the weekend
• State of Origin 1: Wednesday, 7 June

Week 2: Starting Friday, 9 June

• Four games of NRL Women’s over the weekend
• Mid-year tests (for example, New Zealand vs Exiles, Tonga vs Fiji, Samoa vs Papua New Guinea)
• State of Origin 2: Wednesday, 14 June

Week 3: Starting Friday, 16 June

• Four games of NRL Women’s over the weekend
• Mid-year tests
• State of Origin 3: Wednesday, 21 June

Week 4: Starting Friday, 23 June

• Split bye round with four NRL games over the weekend (no State of Origin players)
• NRL Women’s final (played on Sunday afternoon at a packed suburban ground with free-to-air coverage)

Week 5: Starting Friday, 30 June

• Return to business as usual with a full NRL round

This solution doesn’t markedly change State or Origin, thereby preserving the NRL’s cash cow, but it introduces a prominent women’s competition, largely preserves the NRL club competition so only one round is affected, strengthens developing test nations and keeps New Zealand and England players, plus the fans, happy with more rep games.

What ideas do you have to improve the State of Origin schedule?