Tonight’s State of Origin fixture – the second game of the 2018 series – is scheduled to kick-off at 7:40pm AEST, but if you’ve followed Origin over the years you know that won’t happen.
Inevitably all the pre-game pomp and ceremony runs long and we wind up starting the game late – sometimes by a few minutes, sometimes by much more than a few minutes.
7:35pm UPDATE: There’s absolutely no way Origin 2 is starting on time, with teams not yet on the field with five minutes to go until the scheduled kick-off.
FINAL UPDATE: State of Origin Game 2, 2018, kicked off at 7:52pm
More Origin 2:
» TIM GORE: Baby Blues end the Maroon dynasty
» The Liebke ratings
» Nine talking points
» Match report: Blues take the series
» WATCH: Video highlights
» Re-live the match with our live blog
Today for example there’s a curtain-raiser match before the game featuring the best of the NSW Cup vs the best of the Queensland Cup.
This starts at 4:10pm AEST and it’ll wrap up around six, but there’s plenty left on the schedule between then and the start of the game.
Jet will be performing at Game 2 so you can expect at some point during the evening you will be asked whether or not you are going to be their girl. That decision we’ll leave up to you.
After that the schedule plans for both State of Origin teams to enter the stadium at 7:35pm AEST, before a national anthem two minutes later, and kick-off shortly after that.
Things probably won’t run quite so like clockwork though.
Noticeably this year because the game has been scheduled for a Sunday night, the listed kick-off time is twenty minutes earlier than Origin usually starts.
That leaves us with an interesting question – do you think the game will get started before 8pm? It would be a bit funny if it happened to start right then, given the circumstances.
Well, we’ll leave the guessing to you – let us know when you think the game will really kick-off. When the big moment arrives, we’ll update this post with the time.
David
Guest
It’s a joke that a major event like this or many others in Australia can never start on time - regardless if it’s about TV or not - the EPL, World Cup and F1 for example are all televised but start on the dot. NRL should be embarrassed.
Tips
Guest
10pm... 7.5hrs sleep as others mentioned. That’s more sleep in one night than I’ve had in 24 years lol. Still, if it was on earlier, we could all watch it muted at the pub.
Forty Twenty
Guest
The Toads concede defeat at 8pm and go home.
Rilo
Guest
8.03 Those greedy pricks at nine won't resist the temptation to squeeze a few more ads in.
Johnny from cairns
Guest
Channel nine and the nrl r treating all league fans like dummies. It’s all about $ rather than the game. I m sick of it I watch Netflix instead
Renegade
Roar Guru
7:52
Peter Ellsmore
Guest
Hey, I need my beauty sleep you know.
Tips
Guest
It will be all over by 9pm, so poor puppet who only gets up at 5:30am will get “only” 8.5hrs sleep... lol!
Albatross
Guest
7.5 hours just isn’t enough sleep for some people these days.
Mick Wilson
Guest
Well I think they will kick off at 7:50pm
Peter Ellsmore
Guest
State of Origin always starts way too late for me, I’m afraid. As I get up at 5:30 most mornings the around-about 8 PM kickoff time just rules it out for me. I would love it if it started at 6pm (I grew up with rugby league replays starting at 6 PM)
andrew
Guest
6pm would be a better time?