State Of Origin

We are taught early in life that we should not question authority. We must listen to our parents, our teachers and our uniformed sporting officials or face the awful consequences.

A little later on, we learn about a thing called the legal system. We learn that it has courts and that if you’re not happy with a court’s ruling, you can go to a higher court, and maybe even a higher one after that.

Not long afterwards, most of us end up owning a T-shirt emblazoned with the anarchy symbol, or the suave silhouette of Che Guevara. We then spend the rest of our lives jaywalking, texting while driving, putting tax returns in late and downloading whatever we can get our grubby little hands on.

Continue reading "Sometimes, you’ve just got to stick it to the bloody ref" »

Football happened last night.

One colour reigned supreme. Or there was a draw. This open thread was written well before the game. Anyway, last night was effectively another epic clash in the eternal war between the primary colours blue and red. (Maroon, pah, it’s a variation of red). A war that has played out on several fronts: between Republicans and Democrats, Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue, Manchester United and Manchester City.

And more. What’s your favourite blue versus red rivalry? And what other colourful things are happening in your lives? 

In the classic Hollywood sports flick script, a ragtag bunch of losers and misfits take on the arrogant team of pretty boys and spoilt brats. The bad kids then proceed to teach us all a lesson about sport, life and the triumph of the human spirit or some such baloney.

Act One of this script will be played out tonight. The arrogant pretty boys are Queensland, who have clearly superior players, yet whinge and exploit loopholes like only the privileged can.

NSW are the basket cases, with a team full of drunks, ex-jailbirds, thugs, head cases, and players hopelessly out of form. And the player in the best form of his career, Tigers skipper Robbie Farah, is unwanted and unloved by his own fans.

Continue reading "If sports movies have taught us anything, NSW will win" »

They don’t play the AFL grand final in Sydney for the very good reason that the code’s sporting soul is located in Melbourne.

Wimbledon happens at Wimbledon, the Super Bowl takes place in various football-mad US cities, and the only reason they shifted the famous Dakar rally from the north African desert (to South America of all places) was that bandits kept terrorising competitors.

No one’s been terrorising anyone in Sydney or Brisbane lately, give or take a few feral bikies. So remind me again, why have we dumped one of the year’s showcase rugby league games on Melbourne for a seventh time?

Continue reading "Origin in Melbourne is like meat pie in your latté" »

Two major events loom large on the rugby league horizon. On May 23, the first Origin match of 2012 will be played in Melbourne. But before that, and just as keenly anticipated, comes the NSW team selection.

It’s a game unto itself. A week from now, Bob Fulton, Bob McCarthy and Geoff Gerard will sit down and no doubt do the dumb thing they always do, which is picking guys they believe to be “Origin style players”.

Talk about an urban myth. I have watched every Origin match since 1980 through goggles tinted deep blue, and here’s what I’ve seen. Queensland players who star in the NRL also excel at Origin. There really is no magic success formula beyond that.

Continue reading "NSW selectors must ditch the playbook and pick on instinct" »

After coaching the Queensland State of Origin team to a record sixth State of Origin win last week, Mal Meninga wrote a controversial Courier Mail column in which he essentially said “nyaah-nyaah-nee-nyaah-nyaah.”

He is also reported to have said “they said it first, Miss” and “I never” and “I know you are but what am I?”

Before taking up the Origin coaching role in 2006, Mr Meninga was previously known as the man with the shortest serious political career in history – yes, even shorter than Julia Gillard’s.

Continue reading "Maroon to the bone and desperate for a moan" »

“Sometimes you just can’t account for champions.”

With these words, uttered after Queensland’s first try, Nine commentator and rugby league ego-in-chief Phil Gould summed up why Queensland won State of Origin III, and with it, an unprecedented sixth straight series

That first try was so classy. Billy Slater slipped the ball away when held by two players, Johnathan Thurston held the ball just long enough to create confusion, then poked through a beautifully-weighted grubber for Greg Inglis. There wasn’t much room in the corner. Inglis never needs much room.

Continue reading "Champion team sends a champion bloke out in style" »

NSW has the Snowies, Queensland’s got the Reef. We’ve got Byron Bay, they’ve got Noosa. Sydney has the Sydney Opera House, Queensland has, um, the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach. NSW has the tiny border town of Jennings, pop. 130, Queensland’s got the neighbouring town of Wallangarra, pop. 385.

Wallangwhere? Wallangarra, thank you very much, the town which is the symbolic home of the one Queensland commodity which NSW can never seem to match. Passion.

Wallangarra is where Qld State of Origin legend Billy Moore grew up. Actually, he was born in Tenterfield NSW, because the base hospital is closer than the one in Stanthorpe, on the Qld side of the border. But as Moore told The Punch this morning, “my Mum assures me I was rushed over the border before the oxygen had time to affect my lungs.”

Continue reading "Why Queensland care more, and NSW couldn’t care less" »

The State of Origin happened last night, and it’s fair to say The Punch Team sank a schooner or two as the Blues nearly won, but didn’t. Did you watch. Do you care?

What else is on your mind? You know how this works. Share it here. And be nice to those of us who are New South Welshies. Or don’t…

In a startling and unprovoked piece of scapegoating, rugby league suit Geoff Carr telephoned Qld Origin star Greg Inglis this weekend to apologise “on behalf of the game” for the Andrew Johns racial slur

But the game itself has lashed back at Mr Carr for implicating it in the latest Johns brothers misdemeanour.

“Nope. Nuh-uh. No way known should anyone have apologised on my behalf,” the 13-a-side code told this website this week.

Continue reading "Rugby league responds: I’m not racist" »

Update: Blues lost, again.

Tonight is game one of Rugby League’s State of Origin.

I don’t know about you but I’m pretty excited. Origin is still the best advert for the superiority of rugby league over its more cosmopolitan, but often boring cousin, union.  The weather has been rubbish in Sydney which will make tonight’s game even more trench warfare like than usual.

Of course what we’re all hanging out for is a good fight, my contender for the best Origin fight in history goes back to 1984. They certainly don’t make them like this anymore, and I also love the fact that whoever made this video put a soundtrack to it. Keep an eye on a young Fatty looking for somebody to punch. Go Blues.

THERE are certain things you’re supposed to say when people ask what makes you proud of your home state. Nice things like the shimmering Harbour, the Opera House, the SCG or the Olympics.

I would trade them all for the bloodied grin that Brett White gave Justin Hodges in the moments after knocking out Steve Price on Wednesday night.
As the flashy Hodges ranted about payback, positioning himself behind bigger teammates, White simply poked out his bloodied tongue and smiled, mocking Hodges for the pea-hearted, adolescent sook that he is.

Continue reading "Savage dead rubber that breathed life back into league" »

All the SoO II action with The Punch team and a few friends we’ve bribed with beer, live right here. Kick off is at 8pm.

Follow our coverage on Twitter here

Continue reading "State of Origin II" »

For centuries, humanity has grappled with some of the universe’s biggest conundrums.

An intelligent creator or a bunch of randomly evolving strands of DNA? The chicken or the egg? And why does Darren Lockyer have such a gravelly voice?

But there’s one mystery which has divided the great thinkers like no other. Do sporting coaches really make a difference?

Continue reading "Origin proves that coaches simply do not matter" »

Despite the seemingly inoperable state that Rugby League can appear to be in at times, the advent of the three-match State of Origin manages to redeem it as an amazing sporting spectacle year after year. It is also a venue in which players are still given the green light to punch on.

Although nothing quite like this anymore (keep an eye on the Blue’s 13 whose idea of tackling is just to come in swining along with a young Paul Vautin)

This year the first match is in Melbourne and some deluded weirdos argue (see below) today that Origin has no place being played in AFL’s heartland. But I say let Origin be staqed in whatever city can guarantee a packed stadium of enthusiastic fans engaging in the lost art of interstate hatred. Furthermore if Melbourne wants an annual Origin clash we should give them one.

Continue reading "Punch: play Origin in Melbourne every year" »

Tonight State of Origin travels south to Melbourne. It should be the last time it does so.

Sure, it’ll be a great chance for the several dozen Melbourne Storm fans to get together, along with several thousand ambivalent corporates who will be chatting over Crownies about whether Terry Wallace jumped or was pushed as Richmond coach.

As a spectacle though it’s an insult to real league fans in Sydney and Brisbane - which offers nothing to Melburnians who simply don’t get the game, and will no doubt be shouting “high!” and “ball!” at inappropriate junctures tonight.

Continue reading "Counterpunch: Alice Springs should host the curling" »