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The Roar

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Opinion

State of Origin: The best game on the worst day

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31st May, 2021
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Can you feel it? All that buzz and excitement?

Oh yes – it’s State of Origin time.

It is one of my absolute favourite times of the year. So much passion. So much hatred. So much on the line.

We all become expert selectors. There is always an uproar over who got picked and who was left out, and we can’t understand why our advice wasn’t sought after by the actual selectors.

But none of that matters on game day. You automatically love everyone who made the team, and you are behind them all the way. You get decked out in your blue or maroon armour, and you are ready to go to war.

And it’s not just the footy field that becomes a battleground. Families are divided, friends become enemies, co-workers won’t talk to each other – it’s just glorious.

Everything about Origin time is perfect.

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Except for one teeny tiny detail that makes my eye twitch every year: why does it have to be played on a Wednesday night?

I just don’t understand. There are so many negatives to this.

•It’s the middle of the week
•Most of us have to get up and go to work the next day
•The majority of kids aren’t allowed to stay up and watch it as they have to get up and go to school
•We have teams missing their star players, and we usually end up with mediocre split rounds
•And then we have to listen to fans whinge – this year it will be coming from the foot of the mountains – that their team didn’t go as well because they have so many players out.

We are on the right track this year with the second game being on a Sunday night and it being the solo game of the round. But it doesn’t help the other points about going to work or school the next day.

Cameron Munster of the Maroons passes

(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

The answer has always been so simple: play Origin on a Saturday.

Set the day up as an Origin bonanza. There would be three games on the Saturday – an under 18s Origin (or something similar), the Women’s State of Origin, and then, of course, the main event. It can look like Super Saturday does every weekend – 3:00pm, 5:30pm and 7:45pm starts.

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More fans would be able to get to the game with it being on a Saturday, most of us would not have to get up for work on the Sunday and all of those kids who try to emulate their footy heroes in the backyard and at their junior games on a Saturday morning would finally be allowed to stay up and watch those heroes in an Origin match.

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There would be no regular games played on the three weekends that Origin falls on. Everyone has the bye.

This would automatically remove the issue of teams being punished for having high-performing players who have been selected.

The next weekend resumes as normal, and all Origin players have more time than they currently do to recuperate and get their bodies ready again for their club matches.

When Origin got pushed back to November last year, I was excited. I thought this would mean it would automatically get moved to a weekend, as there were no club games on with the season already finished.

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Nope – still a Wednesday. It would have been the perfect time to try a Saturday series.

The only reason I can think of it being on a Wednesday night is that it might have to do with TV rights. That is something I don’t know much about. But I like to think I know a bit about footy.

I’m sure some of you will disagree with me and that is fine. I can hear many saying that Saturday is a terrible idea, it’s tradition for it to be on a Wednesday night and that’s where it should stay. And that is fine too.

But to those readers: please do me a favour.

This weekend, after watching the split-round with all of the Origin players out, and then on the following Thursday morning on your way to work, very tired and a bit worse for wear, just have a think to yourself if maybe, just maybe, Lady League could be right?

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