Opinion
Jerry Seinfeld’s theory on the loyalty sports fans display is that they’re basically cheering for laundry.
“You are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city.
“Fans will be so in love with a player but if he goes to another team, they boo him. This is the same human being in a different shirt, they hate him now. Boooooooo. Different shirt, booooo.”
His theory sums up the glorious insanity of being a sports fan.
The NSWRL has gone against Seinfeld’s Law of Sports Fans by daring to be different with the jersey the Blues will wear in the State of Origin series opener on Wednesday night in Adelaide.
NSW players will be wearing a dark blue version instead of their traditional sky blue strip.
Oh, the humanity.
It doesn’t really matter but of course it does. If you’re a Blues fan.
In 2019 it didn’t matter when NSW wore a similar design in Perth when they thumped Queensland 38-6.
But the sky-blue jersey is a classic for a reason. It has stood the test of time even before the State of Origin concept came into being in 1980.
It actually pre-dates the start of the premiership – in 1907 an “All Blues” team represented NSW against the New Zealand rugby team (under 15-a-side rules) and then beat them the following year when league rules were employed.
Sky blue is the state’s colour. Like maroon north of the border. And you know that the Queensland Rugby League would never deviate from that even for all the merchandising dollars under the sun … shine state.
And as for suggestions that there could be trouble for fans on Wednesday differentiating between the two teams because the dark blue is too similar to the maroon of Queensland, you only have to look at the highlights of the match four years ago to see for yourself that’s not true.
Maybe some of the Maroons defenders could try to spin that line as an excuse for their poor defence that night.
Coincidentally, the Wallabies have announced they will switch to a white jersey when they take on Portugal later this year because the gold in their traditional jerseys can appear red (the main colour of their opponents outfit) to people who are colourblind, an affliction which affects one in 12 men and one in 200 women.
And lastly, if you wanted a living, breathing example of why rugby league in Australia is unlikely to ever realise its full potential, this blue over the shade of jersey NSW will wear is all you need to know.
The NRL, after being told about the move months before, then kicked up a stink once fans had done likewise.
So the NSWRL responded with a statement that basically said bad luck, it’s too late to change now, not that we wanted to or would so anyway.
“It should be noted that NSWRL first followed the concept of wearing an alternate jersey in 2019 without any issue or concern ever being raised by the ARLC. Indeed, the base colour of the jersey being worn on Wednesday evening is exactly the same colour as the colour of the jersey which was worn in Perth in 2019, again without any issue ever being raised by the ARLC and without any clash between the maroon Queensland jersey and the blue NSW jersey being identified.”
There has always been an uneasy relationship between the state bodies and the NRL and ARL Commission, reaching a low point when head office took the NSWRL to court, unsuccessfully in the end, due to a dispute over boardroom election results.
Nicho Hynes on day one of Origin camp after being told his debut jersey would be this new dark blue version with fellow first-timers Tevita Pangai jnr. and Hudson Young. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
It was enough to put most NRL fans to sleep as the rival bodies burnt through wads of cash after lawyering up.
The alphabet soup of rugby league governing bodies was supposed to be united under one proverbial umbrella when NewsCorp shed its half-share in the ownership of the game in 2012 and the ARL Commission took over as the sole governing body.
In theory, the sport was going to be run (well, for a change) by an independent board which was not beholden to the clubs or the states.
And again in short because the details are so tedious, the clubs and the two main states kicked up enough of a fuss and made enough threats to force constitutional reform to eventually who they wanted on the Commission.
Matty Johns often recites a theory that rugby league in Australia is like the war-torn nation of Afghanistan – hundreds of tribes driven by self-interest as they compete for power.
He’s not wrong.
Andrew Johns preferred to wear a Queensland jersey in 1997 instead of the infamous bar corde version. (Photo: Getty Images)
This jersey brouhaha is such a rugby league kind of story, although it could be worse – the Blues could be bringing back the bar code jersey of 1997.
They were truly horrendous.
Spare a thought for an old player like Michael Buettner. He only ever got to represent NSW once and it just happened to be that year so the only jersey he got was that monstrosity.
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