CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
We are just two days out from one of the biggest events in Australia’s sporting calendar, with the first match of the men’s State of Origin series set to kick off in Sydney on Wednesday.
Queensland is heading into Game I defending a two-year streak against New South Wales, which adds to the Maroons 85% series win rate for the last two decades.
The match will also mark Madge Maguire’s first time coaching the Blues. The coach of the 2014 Premiership winning South Sydney side has taken a different approach to his predecessors by taking the team up to the Blue Mountains to prepare for the match.
Madge has also opted to emulate the success of Queensland by picking a Queensland-style squad, just 15 years after Queensland reinvented how to play to Origin.
And with this comes Madge’s attempts at Queensland style mind-games, with non-stop speculation about injuries and last minute changes to the run on side.
However, it will take a lot more than this change of tact to instil confidence in the demoralised Blues fans – who have learnt to not underestimate the Queenslanders, and to fear their silence in the lead up to Game 1.
Blues fans have grown used to simply not being good enough. This hurt is magnified by their sense of superiority that comes with knowing that New South Wales is vastly over-represented in the NRL competition, and all of the game’s top administrators and executives are from New South Wales.
One coping mechanism that has proven popular for the Blues fans over the last decade is to pretend ‘Origin doesn’t matter’ – and is simply a sideshow created to make Queenslanders feel good about themselves because Queensland clubs (4) don’t win the NRL comp as much as NSW clubs (10).
“It’s just a sideshow from the real comp” says deflated Sydney Roosters fan, Ben Buckler (42), whose regular side just got pumped by a half-strength North Queensland Cowboys made up of mid-season debutants, including one young bloke who had never left Queensland before flying to Sydney to put a clinic on the Chookies at SFS.
While deep down Ben knows his local club has been equally demoralised by Queensland clubs over the last 20 decades as his state side has, this narrative that ‘origin doesn’t matter’ is imperative for the human spirit.
“It’s just an exhibition really” he says.
“Who cares about eight in a row. The Roosters won two in a row before Latrell left”
