Opinion
You can’t tell the story of State of Origin without mentioning Arthur Beetson in the first sentence and the Immortal prop’s legacy is still going strong today.
The way he taught everyone the importance of representing your state is not only there for all to see in the Queenslanders but in the NSW team over the years too.
In trying to paint a picture about why it’s so important in our sport, it’s because of what Queensland went through before Origin.
I remember going to the old Lang Park back in the 1970s for 10 years straight when we never saw a Queensland series victory.
The NSW teams would come up the coast to routinely beat us after playing on a Sunday, flying up the day after and beating the Maroons on a Tuesday night.
And to add insult to injury they fielded teams with players who were Queenslanders through and through like big Artie but wore Blues jerseys because they played in the Sydney competition.
We’d all go home deflated because we couldn’t beat them.
(Photo by Craig Golding/Getty Images)
The Queensland side would win the occasional game but it had been 20 years since the last series triumph in 1960 when Ron McAuliffe came up with the Origin idea.
I was a 16-year-old at Lang Park too for that first game in 1980 when Beetson led the team onto the field.
It’s hard to describe the deafening roar that engulfed the old ground when he ran onto the field.
And it wasn’t just Artie, there was John Lang back for Queensland even though he was playing for Easts in Sydney with Kerry Boustead and a few others like Rod Morris at Balmain and Rod Reddy at St George.
Origin is about the big moments and how each team handles them and there was no bigger moment than that night.
Everyone talks about the famous fights from that night but it was more than that – it was so physical, the players were aggressive and tough, such an unbelievable night.
It was such a full-on event that everyone went wow, this is serious.
Wally Lewis (Photo by Tony Feder/Getty Images)
I grew up playing in the Brisbane junior competition and there were three players five years ahead of me who were in the same age-group as my older brother, Russell, who most good judges thought might go on to bigger and better things.
They were Wally Lewis, Mal Meninga and Paul Vautin. And they were three of the main larger-than-life characters who continued Arthur’s early work to ensure everyone who played for Queensland knew the significance of each match.
Fast-forward to 1989 and I was lucky enough to make my Origin debut off the bench at Lang Park in game one in a team led by Wally with the likes of Mal, Fatty Vautin, Gene Miles, Bob Lindner, Tony Currie, Gary Belcher and Dale Shearer.
Getting to play in that team, which won the series 3-0 and was one of the most dominant in Origin history, was an amazing experience.
Maroons legend Mal Meninga. (Photo by Getty Images)
Game two in Sydney is considered one of the most courageous performances in Origin history and for good reason.
I went on when Alfie Langer broke his leg after 20 mins and then we had Mal Meninga go off with a fractured cheekbone, Fatty hurt his elbow and then Michael Hancock was the fourth guy replaced midway through the second half when he did his collarbone.
Bob Lindner hurt his leg but refused to go off and in the end he couldn’t stay on the field and we played the last seven or eight minutes with 12 men. It turned out that he’d broken his leg too.
Wally was in his element that night. He scored that famous try when he bumped off Garry Jack and there was no way he was going to let us lose that game despite all the injury carnage. His calming influence and tenacious spirit made us all better players.
When the game was over at full-time, the NSW fans were actually cheering us because of the effort we’d put in and Wally told us all to stay on the field and soak it up as that sort of thing didn’t happen very often.
Even when we got in the sheds there was absolute elation after what we’d achieved. We probably didn’t realise how much it meant to the state but we were exhausted after we had all those casualties.
Arthur was the coach of that team and he said it was one of the great victories for Queensland. And it’s still up there all these years later.
Andrew Johns celebrates a try with teammates during Origin II in 2005. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
It was surreal for me to be in his presence in the dressing-room. You never imagine that’s going to be part of your journey. He was good fun around the team camp and let us play touch footy at training the day before the game – he was a huge part of that banter and team spirit but when it came time to get the job done he made sure you had your attitude and mindset right.
He had such an imposing influence on the players even though he didn’t say a lot. What he said always counted and he kept it simple for us and that’s the essence of Origin – you have a lot of talented players but you win games based on playing alongside your mates and not letting anyone down.
NSW seemed to get that message a few years later when Phil Gould took over as coach and they had some wonderful teams through the 1990s with guys like Glenn Lazarus, Brad Fittler, Laurie Daley, Ricky Stuart, Bradley Clyde, Paul McGregor, Andrew Ettingshausen, Ian Roberts, Paul Sironen and then Andrew Johns and Danny Buderus.
It’s no coincidence that a lot of those players from the early years have continued to have a significant influence on Origin – Alfie was one of the great stories when he came back in 2001 from England for that game three that Queensland won and Fittler had his comeback in 2004 in my first year as Maroons coach and then I had to contend with Joey Johns doing his return from injury the following year.
Billy Slater plays his final Origin match in 2018. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
Some of those other names have stayed on as coaches like Meninga, Ricky Stuart, Daley, Fittler and now Slater.
Big Mal, around 2010, during his time as Maroons coach in the run of eight series wins in a row, made sure his players knew their history and he invited the 1960 series-winning Queensland squad to a team dinner so they knew what the jersey means and exactly how hard it was for the players whose footsteps they were following in.
The penny dropped quite hard for a few players who may not have known about how Origin came about. The Maroons were in a golden era back then but it wasn’t always like that.
NSW are in a much stronger position after winning three of the past four years and you can see how Freddie Fittler has taken those lessons learned from Gus Gould about what Origin is actually about and drilled that into his players.
Billy knows Origin inside out so I think he can do a similar job for the Maroons and he has talked a lot about coaching a team they can be proud of.
He has an innate understanding of what it’s about which has flowed down through the years in both states from the late, great Arthur Beetson’s enormous effort that night 42 years ago at the age of 35 to bring the Origin concept to life.
Michael Hagan is a former dual-premiership winning first grade player and current assistant coach of Australia's Kangaroos team. Hagan played 183 games for Canterbury and Newcastle and represented Queensland five times. He transitioned into a successful coach and took the Knights to a premiership in his first year in charge back in 2001. He went onto coach 205 NRL games and six times for Queensland in Origin.
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