State of Origin is the name used in Australia for one existing sporting event which involves domestic representative teams. The term, when used in isolation, usually refers to rugby league football, and occassionally Australian Football matches, in which players are selected for the Australian states or territories where they either first played (hence the name 'state of origin') or played the majority of their junior football. The concept mirrors international representative rules in other sports. Although Australian Football state of origin matches no longer take place, the annual Rugby League State of Origin Series is now one of Australia's most popular sporting events.
It was devised to address the drift of most talented Australian rules players to the Victorian Football League (VFL) and the effect that this had on interstate matches. A similar situation existed in regard to the New South Wales Rugby League which until the 1980s recruited the best players from the Queensland Rugby League. This was due to the increased funds of the New South Wales clubs, due to poker machines, which Queensland laws prohibited.
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The first recorded call for state of origin matches was made in 1900, before Australias's split between rugby union and rugby league, by a journalist known as "The Cynic". Writing for a rugby union periodical called The Referee, he suggested that Stephen Spragg, who had moved to Queensland, should be able to play for his state of birth, New South Wales.[1] The concept would later be resurrected for rugby league, however the concept has never been used in rugby union.
Traditionally, the basis for selecting players in representative international sides (i.e. their country of origin) did not extend to interstate sides in Australian rugby league. Instead players represented the state in which they played their club football as per the 'residency rule', in which they played for the club which represented the district they lived in. This gave a significant advantage to New South Wales as the movement of players south was far greater than the movement north.
Former Queensland captain and Australian vice-captain Jack Reardon, who had later become a journalist, was the first to suggest that Sydney-based Queenslanders should be available for selection to represent their state.[2] This would not eventuate until decades later however, when New South Wales and Queensland played their first "state of origin" match on 8 July 1980. The Australian rules experience was echoed, with Queenslanders showing enormous interest in the game at Lang Park (now Suncorp Stadium), Brisbane.
The popularity of rugby league state of origin matches since then has not waned and they remain one of Australia's (and indeed the region's) biggest sporting events. A record crowd of 88,336 attended a game at Stadium Australia in 1999. The record for the annual three game series was set in 2004, when a total of 203,309 people attended. The 2005 series saw an attendance record for a series with two matches in Queensland, with 187,374.[3] The record television audience was set during game 1 of the 2009 series and stands at 3.48 million.[4] This is somewhat assisted by the fact that the SOO games churn out great moments by the dozen, from a 1983 Greg Dowling try created by a Wally Lewis kick bouncing off the crossbar, to Mark Coyne's last-minute try in Game I 1994 created by almost-choreographed passing involving 12 players, which Ray Warren called a "miracle try", to Israel Folau's second try in Game II 2008, which was achieved by catching a Johnathan Thurston kick in the manner of an AFL "speckie", up to the infamous all-in brawl at the end of Game III, 2009. Queensland has won 16 series from 1982–2011, and NSW has won 12, with 2 drawn. Queensland have won the most series in a row.(six series in a row 2006-2011).
Australian international teams are often selected based on performance in the State of Origin series.
New South Wales play in sky blue jerseys and are known as "the Blues", a term dating from 1974 when a journalist used the name in an article. The Blues won that series, leading coach Jack Gibson to comment "I thought they went pretty well for a bunch of cockroaches". The Queensland team plays in a maroon jersey, and are called "the Maroons". Both teams also have unbecoming nicknames - New South Wales: "the Cockroaches"; Queensland: "the Cane Toads".
The first State of Origin game was an Australian Football game between Western Australia (WA) and Victoria, at Subiaco Oval in Perth on 8 October 1977.[5] Leon Larkin, marketing manager of the Subiaco Football Club in the West Australian Football League (WAFL), negotiated with the VFL for two years, before arrangements for the game were finalised.[5] In the words of football historian John Devaney:
A Western Australian team comprised entirely of home-based players had, on 25 June, taken on a VFL team containing many of the same players who would return to Perth ... for the state of origin clash. The respective scores of the two matches offered a persuasive argument, if such were needed, of the extent to which the VFL had denuded the WAFL of its elite talent:Western Australia's previous biggest winning margin against a Victorian state team had been a mere 38 points in 1948. Almost overnight, an inferiority complex was dismantled: Victoria, it seemed, was not intrinsically superior, only wealthier.
- On 25 June 1977 VFL 23.16 (154) defeated Western Australia 13.13 (91) — a margin of 63 points
- On 8 October 1977 Western Australia 23.13 (151) defeated Victoria 8.9 (57) — a margin of 94 points, representing an overall turn around of 157 points
—Devaney, [5]
Games involving each of the other states soon followed. In 1989, a crowd of 91,960 people — a record for interstate games in Australian rules — attended a game between Victoria and South Australia at the MCG.[6]
However, attendance and interest declined during the 1990s, due to a variety of factors, such as the VFL's ongoing conversion into a national club competition,[7] the Australian Football League (AFL). The last official state of origin game involving AFL players was held in 1999.[8] However, an annual veterans' game is still held.
A once-off AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match between a Victorian state of origin side and the Dream Team representing the other states, was staged on 10 May 2008 to celebrate 150 years of Australian Football.
The success of the Australian State of Origin games resulted in the revival of rugby league inter-county games in England in 2001, under the name Origin Series. However, the revival was scrapped in 2003 amid increasing fixture congestion and general apathy from league supporters.
The International Origin Match, to be held for the first time in 2011, is more of an all-star game, as it pits the England national team against Australian and New Zealand stars in the largely English-based Super League.
The New Zealand Rugby League has set up a similar competition called Kiwi Roots which will commence from 2010 onwards.[9] The players will be eligible for two teams, one for players born north of the Bombay Hills and one for those born south of them. This capitalises upon the healthy rivalry that New Zealand's biggest city, Auckland, has with the rest of the country.
Australian rules matches.)