Thread: State of Origin 2016

Game 1
Wed 1 Jun 2016 / ANZ Stadium

BLUES

1. Matt Moylan, 2. Blake Ferguson, 3. Josh Dugan, 4. Michael Jennings, 5. Josh Mansour, 6. James Maloney, 7. Adam Reynolds, 8. Aaron Woods, 9. Robbie Farah, 10. Paul Gallen, 11. Boyd Cordner, 12. Josh Jackson, 13. Greg Bird, 14. Dylan Walker, 15. James Tamou, 16. Andrew Fifita, 17. David Klemmer, 18. Tyson Frizell, 19. Josh Morris.


MAROONS

1. Darius Boyd, 2. Corey Oates, 3. Greg Inglis, 4. Justin O’Neill, 5. Dane Gagai, 6. Johnathan Thurston, 7. Cooper Cronk, 8. Matt Scott, 9. Cameron Smith, 10. Nate Myles, 11. Aidan Guerra, 12. Matt Gillett, 13. Corey Parker, 14. Michael Morgan, 15. Sam Thaiday, 16. Josh Papalii, 17. Josh McGuire.

Bring it on.
Go the Blues.



Lets hear it from all the redneck queenslanders.
You knuckle draggers whinge when you win.
At least all your sisters will get a night of,June 1.

Qld supporter

State of Origin 2016

For the uninitiated, who made the final this year?

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

State of Origin 2016

For the uninitiated, who made the final this year?

Jeezus Betty.

Based upon the form of the Queensland sides I don't hold out too much hope.

But...............Come on the Blues................................

That time of year already...

Don't mind watching me a bit of SOO. I'll be supporting QLD as per usual, not sure why but most Kiwis seem to.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

I'll be supporting QLD as per usual, not sure why but most Kiwis seem to.

Strange that mate as half of the Kiwi population in Oz is in Bondi which happens to be in NSW.

Yeah I dunno why it is really. Of course maybe all it means is that I hang out with a certain class of punter.

I like the Blues too, maybe because the first SOA game I ever watched was in Townsville.

&, there's a certain Maroon that I very much dislike...

6 NSW players on debut, welcome to the biggest arena in Rugby League and good luck boys . Can't believe they've picked Greg Bird again, he's not now and never was an Origin level player. Even though his team beat a woeful Panthers last night, Bird did SFA besides pull faces of faux pain whenever someone did to him what he tries to do to every opposition players he gets his grubby hands on. Still though, the 12+ pressure relieving penalties he'll give QLD during the series will be much appreciated, again. And Robbie Farrah??. Why not put Innis and Pearce back in the team if they're going to go down that well beaten road to a series loss.

On paper, NSW don't look overly menacing but the opening market has both teams at 1.90. That's interesting...

^ Have to agree about Farrah & Bird but it's a nineteen man squad Daley still has to drop two.

Definately the premium Rugby played annually regardless of the code.

Always competitive and entertaining.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

Yeah I dunno why it is really. Of course maybe all it means is that I hang out with a certain class of punter.

You are obviously a man of exquisite taste and your friends are a sophisticated and erudite group. Canetoad sportsmanship is the stuff of legends.

Yep the storm looked great especially in defence.

Having said that they rely very much on Cronk and Smith and without them they are very beatable.

^Sorry, posted this^^ in the wrong thread. Should have been in NRL.

Anyway, go QLD, flog the bejeezus out of those wife bashing Blues.

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

Yep the storm looked great especially in defence.

Having said that they rely very much on Cronk and Smith and without them they are very beatable.

Very true, but this year we are already down Slater and Chambers who usually get called up so hopefully the effect on the team won't be quite as bad.

If memory serves me correctly the last time the Blues beat the cane toads Cronk was out injured.

If he is missing from any side they suffer badly. Great player as is Smith.

In fact I believe the State of Origin series should either be the curtain raiser to the season or played after the Grand Final.

I remember the Bulldogs losing 4 on the trot when they lost their players to the SOO.

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

If memory serves me correctly the last time the Blues beat the cane toads Cronk was out injured.

If he is missing from any side they suffer badly. Great player as is Smith.

In fact I believe the State of Origin series should either be the curtain raiser to the season or played after the Grand Final.

I remember the Bulldogs losing 4 on the trot when they lost their players to the SOO.

And Cronk leaves training today on the Medicart after rolling his ankle.

Oh Oh.

That Article ^^ then went onto to say ...

"The contest is just getting bigger. The three matches are now the Australian equivalent of the NFL’s Superbowl. They command a massive audience that in turn command massive advertising and sponsorship dollars. Even the NRL and AFL grand finals now take lesser billings.

Sure enough, next Wednesday night I’ll switch on Channel Nine at 7.30pm and watch all of their endless pre-game build-up that even the superb Yvonne Sampson and Peter Sterling can’t make bearable, before the kick-off finally happens some time around 8.35pm – the broadcaster having stretched out the event as long as they could to get more advertising dollars.

After it is over I’ll hit my keyboard and belt out my opinion of what we have just watched.
But here’s the thing: I really couldn’t give a rats ass about State of Origin and I haven’t for a long time now. It has long since come to symbolise only hollow hype and money-making to me.
Why? The reasons are many and varied.

Back in the 1980s I loved Origin as much as anyone and hung out for each year’s series. There was no question that I was a NSW supporter.
Firstly, I hated Wally Lewis. I desperately yearned for the likes of Brett Kenny or Sterling to upstage him and send him back north of the border with his tail between his legs – something that rarely happened. He was a bloody good footballer, probably the best I’ve ever seen.

However, then the lines began to blur for me. When Mal Meninga turned up in 1986 at the Raiders with the likes of Gary Belcher, Steve Walters, Peter Jackson and Sam Backo in tow my team suddenly had a lot of Queenslanders in it.

Whereas I previously found it easy to wish for the physical destruction of the players in maroon, I now found that quite difficult. In fact, I waited every match for Steve Walters to seek out Benny Elias when the inevitable stink broke out and I had no doubt of the result I wanted there.

It really took the edge of state versus state hatred out of the game for me.
Nonetheless, in the early ’90s a whole group of us would board a charter bus from Canberra and head up the Hume to watch the matches at the SFS.
The aisle of the bus was lined with eskys that you had to walk over to get to your seat.
By the time we reached the SFS we would have been refused service by any self-respecting establishment. Apparently I was there for the Mark Coyne try in 1994. For me, it wasn’t about the game, or the result, or the rivalry. It was about the event. The party. I was in my 20s after all.

Even then my ambivalence regarding the result was appearing. During one of those matches Meninga broke the line in front of me. Before I knew it I was instinctively on my feet yelling “MAAAAAAAAAAL!”.
A hail of cans, cups and food rained down on me in my Raiders jersey with Walters’ signature on it (the very same jersey that had confused the hell out of the drunken Queenslanders in the north-east standing area of the old Lang Park a year earlier) and my mates quickly pulled me down and told me to shut the hell up.

However, I still looked forward to the spectacle and was nominally a NSW supporter.
Then came the Super League war where Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch fought over the broadcast rights and we supporters, our beloved teams and our players were the pawns.

When Ken Arthurson and John Quayle ensured no Super League contracted player took part in the 1995 series it made the contest nothing to do with state versus state. It was then just a corporate event. If the best players from each state weren’t playing then it meant nothing at all.
When Laurie Daley, who was a superb captain and leader (and, yes, a Raider), was displaced as NSW captain in 1996 in favour of ARL loyalist Brad Fittler I was further alienated.

In 1998, the Queensland team (and the Kangaroos team) was effectively the Brisbane Broncos side. That blurred the boundaries further. Watching the Broncos became like watching Queensland every week. It further diluted my anticipation for the yearly contest. Whereas I’d always gathered with mates at the pub to watch the games, now I sat at home and watched by myself.

Any thoughts I had that I was a NSW fan all but disappeared with the ‘bonding session’ before Game 1 of the 2004 series where, as I understand it, every player was given a few grand and told to go out and ‘bond’. This resulted in the following answering machine message (among other things):
“[Lady’s name] where the f*** are you? There’s four toey humans in the cab it’s twenty to four. Our c**** are fat and f****** ready to spurt sauce, and you’re in bed. F*** me fire up, you sad c***.”

While I still couldn’t bring myself to go for Queensland, those idiots weren’t getting my support.

By 2006 Queensland, although it now seems unbelievable, were the underdogs. Raiders Clinton Schifcofske and Adam Mogg getting the call-up for the Maroons had me actively supporting Queensland for the first time.

However, when they did win I knew they weren’t mine and I wasn’t theirs.
The eight-peat then bored the hell out of me. The NSW ineptitude and Queensland dominance was about as interesting to me as watching the same five sides playing in virtually all the grand finals since 1998 has been.

While I was pleased that NSW won in 2014, I was as far away as I’d ever been from donning an electric blue fright wig and getting stuffed in the bad seats at either end of the ground, the ones the corporate vultures didn’t want, for $100 a pop.
As I lamented back in 2014, the ticket allocations and prices are appalling. While it has got better, now they are having a tough time selling out ANZ Stadium.
In 2008, then New South Wales rugby league chief Geoff Carr bluntly stated that if the NSW fans didn’t vote with their feet (and wallets) and turn up then they’d sell the game elsewhere because they could make more money.

“When we get through these current run of contracts, the games are up for grabs. It would be great if the people of NSW voted with their feet… As much as we’d like to have two games in Sydney every second year, there’s pressure on us commercially because other governments are interested in this event.”

This stunned me.

It meant that Origin was no longer about state versus state passion and busloads of parochial fans; it was pure and simply about money. It was reduced to being a money-making ‘event’ which were tied only to contracts.

The final nail in the coffin for me caring about State of Origin has been the eligibility issues. While the bending of the eligibility rules has a funny side to it (if you haven’t heard it already you must hear my friend Denis Carnahan‘s
,

State of Origin is now destroying international rugby league.

State of Origin matches are very well paid. Each player receives $30,000 per game, along with all sorts of other promotion opportunities no doubt. However, to play for Queensland or NSW you must be eligible to play for Australia.

Lots of players don’t want to miss out on the prestige and pay day of playing in Origin so they find a way to declare themselves Australian.
Last month Fijian Semi Radradra – only an Australian resident – pulled on our national colours. Not only did it weaken the Fijian team, it cheapened ours. I’ll be surprised if Semi’s new almost-allegiance to this nation is not motivated by the chance to play State of Origin.

The whole thing makes the old premise of “state versus state, mate versus mate” a joke.
It reminds me of a scene from Monty Python’s classic Life of Brian.
Reg: If you want to join the People’s Front of Judea, you have to really hate the Romans.
Brian: I do!
Reg: Oh yeah, how much?
Brian: A lot!
Reg: Right, you’re in.

How much can a Fijian or Kiwi really hate a Cockroach or a Cane Toad? Do they even know what they are?
Should the new call be “Queenslander and associated maroon wearing players!”? (I’d say something about a NSW call but they’ve only really got “cattledog” and we know how that ended.)

Can there really be any true emotion in this match anymore if the origin of players can be so frequently be questioned and when the game is primarily considered an event to make money?

Is it not now nothing more than an All-Stars match?
Having seen the teams that were picked I’ve got little doubt that Queensland will win their tenth series in 11 years. However, I really couldn’t give a damn.
"

The comments above do not reflect my views !

State of Origin: Cooper Cronk’s absence would do ‘incalculable damage’ to Queensland’s attack


QUEENSLAND face an uphill battle winning Origin I without Cooper Cronk.

Of course, it would be foolish to entirely dismiss this champion Maroons team, but the absence of Cronk on Wednesday night will do incalculable damage to Queensland’s offensive structures.
It’s easy to be seduced by the brilliance of his playmaking partner-in-crime Johnathan Thurston but cold, hard statistics paint a compelling picture.
Cronk?s absence would do ?incalculable damage?

The big State of Origin conspiracy theory

A SUSPICIOUS Laurie Daley is not losing any sleep over Cooper Cronk’s injury scare.

But Cronk apparently is.
NSW coach Daley has dismissed talk that Cronk is nursing an ankle injury, saying the Maroons were attempting to play mind games to earn underdog status.
“That is typical Queensland trying to get the underdog status, trying to play with your mind,” Daley said.
“Cooper will be out there, he is a wonderful player and I don’t think there is any need for us to worry about what they are doing.”
Matty Johns and his Triple M The Grill Team co-host Gus Worland were equally sceptical, saying they fully expected Cronk to take the field in Wednesday night’s State of Origin opener in Sydney.
“Cooper Cronk is out of State of Origin. Do we actually believe that?” Johns said on radio on Monday morning.
“No,” Worland replied. “If it’s the vision we’ve been seeing on Fox Sports, he basically just falls over like a plastic cone and gets up and laughs about it. Now they’re making out like it’s the world’s worst injury.
Johns added: “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see Cooper have a couple weeks off but I just don’t believe it.”
Cooper Cronk injury: Is it just a State of Origin conspiracy theory