State of Origin Rugby League

The Rugby League State of Origin is an annual series of three interstate rugby league matches between the Maroons, representing the state of Queensland, and the Blues, representing the state of New South Wales. The State of Origin series is one of Australia's premier sporting events, attracting a huge television audience and usually selling out the stadiums in which the games are played. Origin games have a reputation as the toughest, hardest-fought rugby league matches played anywhere in the world.

Players are selected to play for the state in which they played their first senior football, hence the name 'state of origin'. Prior to 1980 players were selected for interstate matches on the basis of where they were playing their club football at the time. In both 1980 and 1981 there were two interstate matches under the old selection rules and one "State of Origin" match. A best-of-three match series has been played around the middle of the rugby league season ever since. Since the inception of the series, total victories for each side are extraordinarily even.

The Conception of State of Origin football

By the 1970s the prestige of interstate matches had been seriously downgraded. Matches were played mid-week, so as not to interfere with the Sydney club competition, and the small crowds in New South Wales were hosted at suburban grounds. Interstate football reached its nadir in 1977 when the New South Wales Rugby Football League (NSWRFL) declined to host the Queensland team, and both interstate games were played in Queensland.

The solution was to come from the rival code of Australian rules football, in which there was a situation similar to the Sydney drain of Queensland representatives; there was an increasing drift of talented players to the Victorian Football League (VFL), depleting other state leagues and representative teams. In 1977, at the instigation of Perth sports marketing professional, Leon Larkin, Western Australia (WA) played Victoria in an Australian rules "State of Origin" game at Subiaco Oval, Perth. QRL chairman Ron McAullife attended, at the invitation of VFL president Dr Allen Aylett. Larkin invited a Queensland business contact, Barry Maranta (the future co-founder of the Brisbane Broncos). Also in attendance were Brisbane Courier-Mail reporter Hugh Lunn, and Maranata's business partner Wayne Reid. They watched WA stage a historic reversal and triumph over Victoria, in front of 40,000 fans.

Lunn, Maranta and Reid played a part in persuading McAuliffe that the concept could be used in rugby league. Lunn told McAullife that "you can take the Queenslander out of Queensland, Ron, but you can't take the Queensland out of the Queenslander." McAuliffe was initially sceptical. "What if we recall our boys from Sydney to play, and we are beaten. Where would we go from there?" Reid spoke to NSWRFL president Kevin Humphreys and suggested that a one-off state of origin match could be used as a Test Match selection trial.

New South Wales clubs were reticent in their support of the concept and set two conditions:

* If the third game was to decide the series it was not to act as a selection trial, and
* that the expatriate Queenslanders would be under the supervision of a representative of the NSWRFL whose duty it would be to protect the interests of both the NSWRFL and the clubs to which they were contracted. (From 1980 this role was filled by Bob Abbot, a Cronulla Sharks official.)

Three Sydney clubs remained opposed to the plan: St. George Dragons, South Sydney Rabbitohs and Eastern Suburbs Roosters. As these clubs were refusing to release players, Humphreys threatened to make the game an official Australian Rugby League trial, which would make release mandatory. The clubs backed down.

After Queensland lost the first two interstate matches (35-3 and 17-7, the second game in front of only 1,638 Sydneysiders) it was announced that a 'state of origin' match would take place on 8 July at Lang Park in Brisbane. The New South Wales media gave both the event, and Queensland's chance of winning it, little credence, calling the game a "three day wonder". Australia's 1978 captain Bob Fulton called the match "the non-event of the century". Ron MacAullife however, was now committed to the concept and vigorously promoted the match. Thousands of tickes were sold before the game had been officially sanctioned.

Although interstate matches in Brisbane had still been well attended (24,653 had attended the opening match of the 1979 series), few expected the sell-out crowd of 33,210 at Lang Park that saw Queensland convincingly beat New South Wales 20-10.