The Maroons selection that killed Origin's soul and made it a joke

It pains me to say it but State of Origin is now a joke. And it is all Queensland’s fault.

I once believed it was a meaningful, fearsome and heated contest between two opponents who genuinely loathed each other.

I now feel it has become little more than a yearly cash cow for the NRL and the elite players, devoid of the soul that once made it burn brighter than anything else in the rugby league universe.

Ironically, just as it was Queenslanders who drove the creation and spirit of this once-great contest, it was Queenslanders who destroyed the very soul of Origin.

The contests now have the same lack of legitimacy as the interstate clashes had before the Origin era began in 1980.

Before the Origin era began, the interstate games were a total joke.

NSW won the vast majority of the games, often by blowout scores. This situation came about because the NSWRL clubs had more money to pay players because of their poker machines.

It followed that the best Queensland players came to the NSWRL for the bigger money on offer. Once they were playing in the Sydney comp the rules said they were a NSW player and must represent the Blues.  

It sounds totally bizarre now, but that is the way things were.

The only thing the Queenslanders hated more than losing to NSW was losing to a Blues side full of Queenslanders. It is one thing to lose a fair fight, it is another thing altogether to lose a rigged one.

The players from Queensland wearing sky blue hated playing against their own state.

Five of the thirteen that lined up for the Queensland Origin side at the old Lang Park on July 8 1980 had been pressed into service for NSW. Rod Reddy, Kerry Boustead, Rod Morris, John Lang, and of course Roma-born and bred rugby league Immortal Arthur Beetson.

Beetson was a superstar from the start. In his debut season with Balmain the raw 21 year old was selected straight into the 1966 NSW Firsts side.

He didn’t have a choice. He had to play against his actual state and he ended up playing 17 games in the sky blue.

As a young kid it must have seemed strange to him playing against his own state. However, it must also have been very exciting to be recognised and included in the elite company of Graeme Langlands, Ken Irvine, John Raper, Kevin Junee, Dick Thornett and Kevin Ryan.

Beetson in Sky Blue? Tell ’em they’re dreaming. (Photo by Craig Golding/Getty Images)

But you have to wonder what his family and friends back home thought about it and what they said to him about it. I can’t imagine anyone was too happy with the situation.

Beetson was 35 when he finally represented his own state. And to say it was a very big deal for him and so many Queenslanders would be a massive understatement.

The bedrock of State of Origin – the very essence and lifeblood of the contests –  is that Queenslanders would represent their own state.

They would win together as Queenslanders. They would lose together as Queenslanders.

Now the official distinction of who is eligible to play for Queensland or NSW is determined by where they played their first senior game.

But surely Queensland – if it is as essential as they’ve led us to believe – is in the soul.

Now there have been plenty of jokes about player origins being pretty loose on occasions.

My good friend Denis Carnahan’s immortal song “That’s in Queensland” raises quite a number of incidents where a player not from Queensland has represented the state.

However, while the joke is good, for the most part it doesn’t bear close scrutiny.

Petero Civoniceva moved to Queensland from Fiji when he was just one. Israel Folau’s family moved to Queensland in his early teens.

Lote Tuquiri may have been born in Fiji but he moved to the Sunshine State at the age of 15 with his family and played his first senior game there.

Brad Thorn’s family came to Queensland when he was just eight. Tonie Carroll might have been born in Christchurch New Zealand, but he went to high school in Beenleigh – that is the absolute right to wear the Maroon jersey right there.  

Billy Moore played his first senior game in Tenterfield, NSW but that is because that is where the kids from Wallangarra, Queensland went to high school. Sam Thaiday may have been born in Sydney but he was raised in Queensland from the age of four.  

I have zero problem with any of these players –  and many others like them – playing for Queensland. Not only do they fit the criteria, you can bet your life that they absolutely loved Queensland and identified as Queenslanders well before State of Origin selection was even considered.

Billy Moore: Queenslander. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)

However, in 2006 a selection was made that was just totally wrong and clearly ran against all of that origin ethos.

Not only was it wrong in regard to the established criteria, it was wrong in regard to the most essential ingredient in State of Origin: Queenslander passion.

When Greg Inglis was selected in the starting line-up for Queensland it was based on the QRL claim that he had played his first senior game for either Wavell High or Brisbane Norths.

However, any proper investigation showed Inglis had in fact played his first senior football match in NSW for Hunter Sports High.

Further, unlike the example of Moore who was a devoted Queenslander from his first conscious thought, Inglis was NSW born and bred.

Inglis grew up in and around Bowraville, Kempsey and Macksville.

His cousin Preston Campbell played for NSW Country. Beau Champion – another cousin – played for NSW City. And cousin James Roberts wore the Sky Blue in Origin.

But the crime isn’t just that Inglis is from NSW. It is that he was a budding superstar and everyone knew it.

It is not drawing a long bow to compare the young Greg Inglis to the Arthur Beetson that turned up in Sydney in 1966.

The Queensland team that Inglis became part of won 10 series across eleven years. It was full of stars, but Inglis was a superstar among them.

All up, Inglis scored 18 tries – the most in Queensland Origin history – and was a big part of those 10 Queensland series victories.

More pointedly though, he scored pivotal tries in seven of the Queensland wins during their dynastic run, very arguably being the decisive influence in the outcomes of the 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 series.

That’s a whole lot of Yi Yi Yippie right there.

Roma-born and bred Kangaroos and Maroons legend Darren Lockyer acknowledges this exact point.

“There’s no doubt with Greg Inglis, there’s all this debate about he should have been playing for NSW; I mean, we were lucky, very lucky, to have him on our team. There’s no way we would have won all those series in a row and had the dominant decade that we did if Greg had have been on the other team,” he told Wide World of Sports in 2020.

Greg Inglis (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

BIlly Slater also highlighted the huge impact Inglis had on the team from the very moment he turned up.

“Nothing seemed to faze him. He was this young, skinny kid with so much ability that he didn’t really care who he played against, what their reputations were. He just had this aura of confidence about him. That gave me a lot of hope for Queensland, given the fact that guys like Greg Inglis were stepping into that Maroon jersey.”

I had the pleasure of interviewing Inglis after a Rabbitohs match a number of seasons ago. I have interviewed a huge number of players but I have never been as awestruck as I was standing in front of the man they call GI.

He is still the most perfect example of a sportsman I’ve ever seen in the flesh. His stature and physique was something more akin to a hero in the Marvel universe. While you got some idea of that when watching him on the telly or from the sidelines, when you were right in front of him it was jaw dropping.

And he is also one of the best footy players I’ve ever seen.

What I want to make clear amongst all of this is that I bear no blame towards Inglis for playing for Queensland.

The reason Inglis was in Queensland in the first place was because he joined the Melbourne Storm’s development system. They put the then 16 year old  into Wavell Sports High and had him playing for Brisbane Norths. You can be certain he was well supported and well cared for.

You can also bet that he had really bought into the Storm ethos fully by the time he debuted for them in 2005.

When the chance came in 2006 to play with team mates Cam Smith, Dallas Johnson and Billy Slater in Maroon it is easy to understand how he would happily go along with it.

Frankly, he was just a 19 year old kid. Expecting deep, considered thought about their origins or long-term impacts of their decisions from a 19 year old male is the height of optimism at the best of times.

If Billy Slater and Cam Smith said they wanted me in their company right now I’d probably call my wife from the road to tell her that I didn’t know when I’d be home.

You also need to remember that when Inglis was first brought in to play for Queensland the Maroons had lost the last three series and – ironically considering what was about to occur  over the next decade – an awful lot was being made about the future of the series because of doubts about whether Queensland could field a competitive team into the future.

So Inglis was by no means just dropping all of his nominal allegiances to play for a winning side. In fact, quite the opposite.

He chose his loyalty.

While his heritage and the eligibility criteria may say otherwise, I have zero doubt that Inglis fully bought into Queensland. By the time he played his final match for them in June 2018 he had become as fearsome and committed a Maroon as I’ve ever seen.

This was recognised through him being given the captaincy for that year’s series.

Ex Kangaroo, Queensland and Storm captain – and future immortal – Cam Smith never understood why Inglis’ selection was an issue at all.

“It was Greg’s decision. No one tied him down to a seat, tortured him and said he had to play for Queensland or else,” he told Fox Sports.

But that isn’t the issue. Surely if Queenslander passion is to be believed then to be a prospective Queensland player you must bleed maroon from the outset, not learn to do so over time.

Cameron Smith played a record 42 matches for Queensland and captained the side 18 times.

He should have known better than anyone that it’s about what Queensland is and what Queensland means. He should have protected the ethos that Queenslanders only play for Queensland more fiercely than anyone.

I’m born and bred in the Australian Capital Territory. Everyone hates us because the Commonwealth Parliament sits here. While there are great aspects to living here, we aren’t the most parochial mob. No one gets that passionate about being from the ACT.

So as a kid when I watched the Queensland passion as it was so fiercely embodied by the Maroon players and their Lang Park fans I really envied it.

It really seemed to mean something.

To me it seemed that they were all part of something bigger. Something special. Something sacred.

(Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

I yearned – and still yearn – to be part of something like that.

But I can yearn to be a Queenslander as much as I want. I’m not a Queenslander.

As I’ve written previously, so much – if not most – of what made State of Origin so incredibly massive was that essential Queenslander passion.

But the selection of Inglis casts significant doubt on all of that.

Maybe that passion was a convenient confection. A myth.

Even if it isn’t, when the lad from Bowraville was given a maroon jersey it sustained terrible damage.

I had always believed that Queenslanders would prefer to lose as Queenslanders together, rather than gain any victory that could be questioned or tainted through questionable selections – even if the rules said they were technically allowed.

How could any proud Cane Toad countenance or celebrate an era of dominance even partially built on the skill and genius of a New South Welshman playing for them?

I don’t understand that at all and the more I have thought about it the more I have questioned Queenslander pride and passion and the less I have cared about State of Origin.

While Inglis became a true Maroon, I think his selection was a blight on the State of Origin philosophy for two key reasons that none of the other disputed and/or questionable selections share to anywhere near the same extent:

1. Inglis was such a good player that he personally affected multiple series in Queensland’s favour, further compounded by it directly robbing NSW of a star player; and

2. It would have been obvious to anyone who bothered checking properly that Inglis was a New South Welshman by birth, blood and heritage AND eligibility.

The people who should have cared the very most about that should have been the QRL selectors.   

Surely Queenslanders themselves should be the most ardent protectors of what qualifies a person to pull on the Maroon jersey. The bouncers at the door of their exclusive club surely must protect and enforce Queensland eligibility – win, lose or draw – more fiercely than anything else otherwise all their talk of passion is just a lie.

It seems to me that either they weren’t competent enough to carry out basic checks or they didn’t care because it was to their advantage.

I sure hope that it is the former.

Otherwise it means that the whole premise of State of Origin is built on bullshit and It all just boils down to winning at any cost, with Queensland Pride being more of a guideline than a code.

The crime is almost indistinguishable from Artie Beetson playing for NSW.  

I fear that we are now on a quick and slippery slope to having a yearly series fought out by two bands of loosely associated, hired mercenaries – if we haven’t arrived there already.

And that’s a reality that isn’t worth risking club players for at all.

It’s just a load of bullshit.