Why Origin is the Real Deal

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

Even before the birth of rugby league in 1908, the Queenslanders were already bitterly complaining about the unfair advantages New South Welshmen had over them.

Just a few years after the former colonies came together in 1901 to form the new nation, the Bananalanders had come to the conclusion that there was nothing in it for them. From one end of Queen Street to the other, they bemoaned it as "the curse of Federation".

To be fair, they probably had good reason - with colonial border taxes and protectionism removed, imports from NSW flooded the northern capital, and Queensland factories that had produced jams, tobacco, boots, soap and many other commodities were forced to close down.

A newspaper report in 1907 offered, "Still, Queensland is a state rich in natural resource and in time may overcome the setback, but the blow was a staggerer."

Through the twentieth century Queensland built up export industries, most notably coal, sugar and cattle. The Queenslanders had no compunction in sending their goods and produce far and wide. And it was the same with rugby league; Queensland footballers played their trade in NSW, and took up lucrative contracts with clubs in England.

Credit for the North Sydney Bears' only two premiership winning seasons (1921-22) sits squarely on the shoulders of Ipswich's master half-back Duncan Thompson. There were few more popular stars in English rugby league in the 1930s than Eric "The Toowoomba Ghost" Harris and Brisbane's Jeff Moores.

The trend continued after WW2, with the now legendary Harry Bath leaving Brisbane Souths and joining the Balmain Tigers in Sydney. Other great names synonymous with the code, from Goodna's Noel Kelly to Roma's Arthur Beetson, beat a well-worn path southwards.

The crux of the issue was Sydney's Leagues Clubs, and the rich poker machine revenue that they were generating for their associated football clubs.

In the 1950s and '60s, the top rugby league exponents in Sydney were amongst the highest paid footballers in the world. By the 1970s, not only were the best Queenslanders coming to Sydney, but the top English and New Zealand players too.

State representative teams were chosen based upon where you resided, not where you had come from. Even though Beetson's football-heart was unquestionably Maroon, from 1966 to 1977 he played for NSW in a sky blue jersey. Most of those games were against Queensland.

For Queenslanders this was the principle that they found hardest to stomach: the Maroons rep teams were not only the poorer for all the best Queenslanders having "gone south", but were being defeated by former maroons now clad in sky blue.

The Sunshine state had been dutifully turning up as NSW's annual fodder since the first rugby clashes between the colonies in 1882. Australian teams in both rugby codes were invariably stacked full of NSW players, with a smattering of Queenslanders seemingly selected to placate the Bananalanders. It was not uncommon for Australian rugby league and rugby union teams in the early 1900s to tour England wearing NSW jerseys.

In rugby league, Queensland won few inter-state series as the decades rolled-by. From 1962 to 1980 Queensland tasted victory on just four occasions.

Though interest in NSW v Queensland clashes was still strong in the northern state, with crowds of more than 30,000 packing into Brisbane's Lang Park, few held any real hope of seeing an unlikely vanquishing of the star-studded NSW teams.

It seemed to Queensland's league fans so transparently unfair. And that the Blues included Queenslanders made it all the more unpalatable. It was also damn unAustralian that the Maroons should have to suffer this indignity annually.

By 1980, enough was enough. The Queenslanders stood up and shouted “No more!”; the call went out to introduce State of Origin to rugby league.

Similar to Australian football's format for inter-state clashes, it was also a scheme based upon the qualification criteria for selection in British rugby's "Five Nations" teams. Queensland demanded that it be able to call upon its own players, even if they were contracted to NSW clubs.

As far as Sydney's rugby league media and clubs were concerned, the Origin concept was a no-goer. It was decried as just the Queenslanders complaining again. Few in NSW would argue today that the Queenslanders' complaints have not led to something worthwhile; something that may just be rugby league's saving grace.

Today the State of Origin series sits alongside the NRL Grand Final as the most important dates on the rugby league calendar; Origin has become one of the jewels of Australian sport, drawing hundreds of thousands of viewers to the code who would normally have no interest in the 13-man brand of rugby.

Remarkably, the pulling-power of the contest extends beyond NSW and Queensland, with large television audiences in the other Australian states and New Zealand. The Maroons and the Blues, these two footballing-adversaries, have built and sustained a rivalry that those without any allegiance still find compelling.

Rugby league guards Origin tightly, knowing any tampering with its format would be fool-hardy. Calls from New Zealanders to turn the competition into a three-cornered contest are rejected out-right.

Good v Evil, Maligned v Praised, Blue v Red – two-sided rivalries work.

This article was first published by the ABC in May 2008.