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Opinion
The NRL State of Origin series has an immense following each and every year, why not the AFL?
I have an idea that I proposed about 20 years ago and that was actually published in the West Australian and I see don’t see any reasons for it to fail.
The first objective is staging an Origin series is to give it relevance. I don’t follow cricket anymore but back in the day, when the West Indies, England and Australia (and the other strong nations of course) would contest the one-day tri-series, it was exciting and entertaining.
But ask a person a year down the track about that series, most people would need to be reminded of which teams actually played, let alone who won. There was no relevance to the games, they were merely revenue-raising events to support the Test series, as they are today along with T20.
So the AFL Origin needs to have relevance. It needs to be remembered otherwise it is doomed.
In an AFL Origin the state teams would be formed as is normally the case by state of birth. Players born in the ACT would represent NSW. The Northern Territory players could form a team in their own right or the players could be zoned to WA, SA and Queensland. But that is a matter of debate for the powers to be. The crux of my idea lies in the format of the series.
Each year a weekend is set aside for Origin, possibly aligned within the bye weeks.
For convenience, let’s say that the NT players are representing other states in this scenario. We would then have Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, NSW and Queensland.
(Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
These states would be rated one to six based on the previous Origin series but for the first series a little common sense would be required.
It is, however, something that would also have to be determined in a logical way because the first three or four years of such a series would be greatly influenced by the decisions.
The series would consist of the top ranked team playing the second ranked team, as well as three versus four and five versus six.
The winner of the one versus two game is the AFL champion state. The loser of that game is demoted to third-ranked status for the series the following year.
The same applies to the three versus four game and the five versus six game where the winner is promoted one ranking position and the loser is demoted one position. In the case of the sixth-ranked team losing, they obviously remain in sixth position.
The following year the same system is in place and over time the possibility of any state winning the championship is real.
No doubt the three big states would dominate but the opportunity is there for any state to win. I am thinking here of Tasmania in the ’60s when it was absolutely a creditable scenario.
As stated, the series would be played over a weekend and each game would have stand-alone status on Friday night and Saturday afternoon and night with perhaps the championship game played on the Saturday night.
I know that I would have an interest in AFL State of Origin in such a format because there is a stake in place.
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