Ronaldo Mulitalo must have been the happiest man in world after Reece Walsh’s injury opened the door for him to make his Queensland debut in Origin 2.
However, in dramatic scenes, an article resurfaced the night before the match indicating the rising star had moved to Australia from New Zealand ten months after he turned 13, thereby making him ineligible to fulfil his dream.
Heartbreaking? Undoubtedly. The right decision? Unfortunately, yes.
You must reside in that particular state before your 13th birthday to pull on the jersey in State of Origin. As Mulitalo even confirmed himself in an appearance on the Bloke in a Bar podcast back in January, he’d narrowly missed the cut – even though he visited Australia prior to his 13th birthday for holidays.
The rules are clear: you must reside in that state. Simply going on a holiday and visiting the Great Barrier Reef doesn’t make you a Queenslander. I once visited the Eiffel Tower – should that enable me to play for France?
It’s a shame it came to this, as the main reason he left New Zealand in the first place was reportedly to play for the Broncos and Queensland, the teams he had supported from childhood. I agree to have his dream taken away from him just hours before the game began was totally wrong; however, for the sake of the integrity of the series, the correct decision was made.
The excuse Mulitalo played under-16s, 18s and even under-20s for Queensland doesn’t wash with me. the QRL should never have let it get so far in the first place without doing their due diligence on his eligibility, and it doesn’t allow to you break the rules again.
Ronaldo Mulitalo scores a try. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)
The other major excuse – that other players, most notably James Tamou, moved to Australia after his 13th birthday – also falls flat. Yes, under current rules Tamou would never have been able to represent NSW, having been born in New Zealand. However, he had already made his representative debut before the new rules were enforced by the Australian Rugby League Commission in December 2012.
Even Mulitalo’s status as a bona fide Queenslander is blurry. Yes, after moving to Australia, he spent four years in the state – but he has now spent the same amount of time on the Cronulla Sharks’ list, a NSW-based club. Should a player who has spent majority of his life – the better part of 14 years in Mulitalo’s case – and has spent roughly the same amount of time in the sunshine state as he has in NSW, be eligible for Queensland? I don’t think so.
The eligibility rules are in place for a reason. Firstly, so Australian rugby doesn’t make a habit of permanently stealing elite talent from New Zealand or England: what if Sam Burgess had decided not to play for England and play for NSW instead? Where would the buck stop? And secondly, to prevent the states from luring players from elsewhere with the money and prestige State of Origin brings.
Unless you lived and grew up in NSW or Queensland, it’s hard to have the same amount of passion for the series, a major reason why Origin has been so successful for so long.
It was a brutal call, but the NRL was right in not permitting Mulitalo to play for Queensland on Sunday night. The poor bloke should never have had his emotions toyed with like that, or been forced to deal with the fallout from failings that were almost entirely not of his own doing. But in my opinion, the bigger shame is that an eligible Queensland player’s spot was taken for years while Mulitalo played in the junior representative teams.
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