Could it be happening?
On Wednesday night, it looked like it was happening.
We don’t like to say it aloud, because every time we’ve thought it was happening, it wasn’t.
But why is being constantly wrong a barrier? Maybe this time, it’s happening.
The Origin concept has been invigorated, year after year, by Queensland being greater than the sum of its parts and NSW being lesser. Queensland overcomes its remoteness, its victimhood, the biases against it, and somehow defies gravity.
The state of NSW has 32 per cent more people and 35 per cent more rugby league players than Queensland. Even when the Maroons were stacked with immortals, NSW often seemed to have a better team on paper. On paper, the Blues won. But in the Origin played on grass, the Maroons have 26 series wins (or draws that counted as wins), the Blues 17.
Two things were evident on Wednesday. One was that NSW were so much better than Queensland, it wasn’t funny. Not funny ha-ha, not funny peculiar, not even funny in a gloating, up-yours-Queensland kind of way. More like sad funny. NSW put in a five-out-of-ten performance and won by 12. A margin of 20 would still have flattered Queensland.
The second thing was that, as Andrew Johns said, it was no better than an average NRL game. That was flattering too. Both sides had the fumbles. Often this doesn’t matter, because there’s always the Queensland passion and hatred, the boiling blood of Origin.
Where was that?
In the changing rooms later, Queensland players were carrying their babies just like NSW players were. Nobody was destroying walls or slamming doors. Billy Slater looked morose, but morose like the only single dad at a kids’ birthday party. The rest of the players were chatting, having a drink, putting it all behind them.
I know we’ve heard this before, but look at the depth of talent Laurie Daley was able to leave out. He had the luxury of omitting four of the most destructive forwards in the NRL in Keaon Koloamatagi, Stefano Utoikamanu, Terrell May and Haumole Olakau’atu. He didn’t need Api Koroisau. He didn’t even have to think about Jake Trbojevic.
NSW winger Brian To’o celebrates after scoring a try.Credit: Getty Images
He could overlook Jarome Luai, Campbell Graham, James Tedesco and Ryan Papenhuyzen. His selections and style of play were more conservative than the National Party. He has a whole Origin second team in reserve, and a new generation ahead with the likes of Ethan Strange, Mark Nawaqanitawase, Jacob Preston, Blake Steep, and who knows, one day Lachlan Galvin.
Depth? He’s drowning in it.
Queensland, meanwhile, are spoilt for lack of choice. Tom Dearden for Daly Cherry-Evans: is that it? “Mobility” in the middle forwards eventually came to mean “too small”. They were being pushed back on Wednesday before they started giving away penalties.
Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, their best big man, responded to being dominated by trying to separate NSW players’ heads from their necks. This tactic used to work in Origin but now it just means penalties, backpedalling, exhaustion. Cherry-Evans and Kalyn Ponga play behind beaten packs most weeks; Wednesday was more of the same.
So. Is it really happening, and if it is, what are the structural causes behind it?
One is rugby league’s increasing control of raw violence. The on-paper Origin always failed to eventuate because Queensland compensated for their shallower talent pool with their power to intimidate.
Even in the era of Cameron Smith, Johnathan Thurston and the other galacticos, they had their Josh McGuires and their Nate Myles, their Felise Kaufusis, their Josh Papaliis and their Matt Scotts. Out wide, they had Will Chambers and Dane Gagai.
It’s easy to forget that in their almost uninterrupted success from 2006 to 2017, their pack was repeatedly written off and they won as much through primitivism as polish. Now that whacking people is a liability, Queensland lose one of their advantages. Not that NSW didn’t whack Queenslanders too, but Queenslanders did it better.
The current Queensland team is being criticised, up north, as “too nice”. Nobody likes being called too nice, but the curbs on brutality and the close attention of video referees have hurt Queensland more than Les Boyd or Paul Gallen ever did.
Another change is cultural. After a generation of effort, NSW have managed to find the darkness within. Through their old boys’ stories of humiliation, their baseball bats, their misery on Caxton Street, the Blues have discovered, or manufactured, a chip on their inside shoulder. On Wednesday, the hatred seemed to be flowing against the laws of nature.
Latrell Mitchell and the Blues celebrate another try.Credit: NRL Photos
A third structural change is the conversion of young players to a NSW-first mentality. This loyalty used to be Queensland’s, but the NSW hierarchy is now spotting talent early and bringing it into Origin camps, which now indoctrinate youngsters like Crusader Camps.
Maybe the turning point was the widespread belief that Macksville’s Greg Inglis played for Queensland because he wanted to. NSW lost a generational player when he gravitated towards passion and a perception (unique to rugby league) that Queensland treated Indigenous players better. To see Latrell Mitchell being won over to the NSW-first cause is to see a shift that may prevent the Inglis situation from being repeated.
After 43 years, maybe NSW have found a way to tap their bigger talent pool.
Yeah, I know. Having committed these thoughts to print, I do realise that Queensland will now win in Perth and Sydney. And we’ll reassess game one and realise that if a few penalties and six-again calls had gone the other way, if one ball wasn’t dropped, one tackle wasn’t missed, then the momentum reversed and history changed. Instead, NSW succumbed to hubris, which should be reserved for spectators and journalists.
But until then, let’s say that the thing has happened and Queensland have run out of their magic. It’s happened before: from 1990 to the early 2000s, the Blues won 10 Origin series to Queensland’s four. Losing made Queensland more like Queensland. They said that NSW dominance would kill Origin. The league imagined how to change eligibility rules, to get non- Queenslanders into maroon jerseys. Anticipating that it might be happening again, already the NRL has spoken of the wealth of Kiwi and Pasifika players who are sitting watching the game’s mid-season showcase.
Eventually, the show needs Queenslanders to win again and if that means putting New Zealand and Tonga in Queensland, that’s what we’ll see. But it might take time, and NSW should enjoy that time while it lasts. Especially if it’s only a couple of weeks.
