State of Origin

Definition

State of Origin is the name used in Australia for Rugby League and Australian Rules Football interstate matches, in which players are selected for the state in which they first played. The concept was borrowed from international representative rules in other sports, and 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.

Australian Rules Football

Although State of Origin is now more strongly associated with Rugby League, the first such event was an Australian Rules game between Victoria and Western Australia at Subiaco Oval in Perth on October 8, 1977. In the words of one football historian:

Much of the credit for getting the state of origin concept off the ground has to go to then Subiaco Football Club Marketing Manager Leon Larkin, who undertook two years of intensive negotiation with the powers-that-were at the VFL in order to obtain agreement for the inaugural match, which took place at Subiaco Oval, between Western Australia and Victoria, on October 8 1977. Significantly, 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 three and a half months later 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:

• 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

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.

(An Australian Football League factsheet tends to support this version of events and also provides statistics and details of all matches.)

Games involving each of the other states soon followed. Although the Australian Rules State of Origin games were initially popular, they declined in attendance and interest following the conversion of the VFL (later Australian Football League) to a national club competition in the 1980s. No matches have been held since 1999.

Rugby League

The two Rugby League states, New South Wales and Queensland, emulated the concept for the first time on July 8, 1980. The experience of the rival code was echoed, with Queenslanders showing enormous interest in the game at Lang Park, Brisbane; as anticipated, Queensland defeated NSW, 20-10.

Compared to the Australian Rules variety, the Rugby League State of Origin matches went from strength to strength, and they remain one of Australia's biggest sporting events: a record crowd of 88,336 was achieved in 1999 at Stadium Australia in Sydney and the record for the annual three game series was set in 2003, when 183,691 people attended.

State of Origin matches are famous for extremely high levels of skill and daring and equally high levels of gratuitous violence and (often seemingly unprovoked) punch-ups during the matches, and the violent (or, more euphemistically, 'intense') aspects of the matches are part of the whole package which makes them so special.

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.