JUST imagine it. It’s a mid-winter Wednesday night. Suncorp Stadium is heaving. Caxton Street is off the reservation.
It’s Origin time baby! But this year the crackle of the night sky has a lit
tle extra pop.
There’s the usual narrative. Paul Gallen’s arrived in a part of the world he despises and is despised in equal measure. He’s just belted a no-name Queenslander in the boxing ring and Nate Myles has hinted at a square up. Judiciary be damned.
The Blues have got the weight of an expectant state on their shoulders. Surely the streak has to end this year.
And it just might, you know. Because this year NSW has got a secret weapon. Make that two secret weapons. It just so happens that they both speak with Yorkshire accents.
The Burgess brothers, Sam and George, have been waiting for this their whole lives. They love Origin! They’ve worshipped the sky blue jersey since they were belting the life out of each other on the village green.
And oh, what a pack they’re playing in tonight. George in a front row rotation with James Tamou and Andrew Fifita. Sam joined in the back-row by Gallen and Greg Bird.
But they don’t strike fear into the Suncorp crowd, cause look who’s in maroon.
There’s Sonny Bill Williams busting holes in the Blues’ defensive line down the left as Israel Folau looms up on the outside.
He’s got Greg Inglis and Billy Slater inside and outside him for support. As if he’s going to need it.
Right now this is the stuff of dreams. NRL boss Dave Smith must surely wake up at times with this very scenario whirring around in his head.
If only it were that easy. If only Origin eligibility wasn’t such an emotionally charged issue. If only the rules hadn’t just been tightened up to stop the fence jumpers like Greg Inglis.
Dave Smith can’t afford to deal in hypotheticals. When he took the NRL’s top job on the eve of the 2013 season he knew there were huge challenges to overcome.
He was aware that many of those challenges involved political games. So many stakeholders to please, so many obstacles to hurdle.
But putting aside performance enhancing substances and the spectre of illegal betting and match fixing, Smith’s greatest challenge is to grow the game. And the best way to do that is to turn a negative into a positive.
Right now rugby union is winning the battle for the marquee talent. Yes, rugby league’s traditional nurseries will keep pumping out stars. The game won’t die without the likes of Sam Burgess and Sonny Bill Williams.
Hey, they may even both return to the 13-man game when the 2015 Rugby World Cup’s done and dusted. But why give your direct competitior for stars, eyeballs, and TV dollars a free kick every four years?
The fact is both Burgess and Sonny Bill are rugby league players at their core. So is Folau. The only reasons each have jumped the fence is for the challenge offered by international rugby, and the top-up that provides their salary.
Let’s face it, rugby league is never going to be able to compete with rugby union on the international stage. Keep the World Cup going, keep taking the game to other markets, sure. But as far as using it as a carrot for the game’s best players, forget it.
What jumps out of the box for league is Origin. It’s perhaps the most fierce cauldron in which a contact sport is conducted anywhere in the world.
TV audiences are massive. Even died in the wool AFL fans in Victoria who don’t watch another game of league all year tune into Origin. It’s not just sport it’s theatre.
Already Origin is big in key global rugby league markets like the north of England, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
But that interest would explode if the superstars of those countries were taking part.
Origin’s already the pinnacle of the sport. Why not formalise that title by opening it up to the best of the best, no matter what country they hale from, and without turning international league into a bigger farce than it already is by forcing Origin players to play for Australia.
Let James Tamou play for the Blues AND New Zealand. Let every NRL player nominate what state they support when they first sign a professional contract and make them stick with it.
Then let them stay true to the nation they were born and raised in by allowing to represent them in international league.
Of course there’ll be the naysayers that believe this dilutes the very fabric of the Origin contest. That no one can commit to shedding blood, sweat and tears for an Origin jersey if they’ve didn’t feel the joy of the wins and the pain of the losses as supporters and residents of their state when they were kids.
But let’s be realistic. Origin transcends that. There’s Kiwis who have never set foot in Queensland who support the Maroons as passionately as the average Queenslander from across the ditch.
Just ask Sam Burgess about the pain he’s felt to watch on helplessly as a Blues fan as NSW has lost the past eight series.
And don’t tell me you don’t have that irritating workmate or neighbour who supports Queensland at Origin time even though he was born and bred in NSW.
So let’s get real. Let’s make Origin a game all rugby league players can aspire to. Let them fight for the financial rewards that go with it.
That, along with a marquee player allowance in the NRL salary cap, might just stop the likes of Burgess, Sonny Bill and Folau from contemplating a code-hop, even in the changed professional sports landscape of today.
Ben Glover
FOX SPORTS
http://www.foxsports.com.au/league/state-of-origin/time-nrl-opened-up-state-of-origin-to-stars-of-all-nationalities-to-slow-the-player-drain/story-fn31yxah-1226831568252