Re: The totally off-topic thread
There is some value in looking at the underlying argument from JohnK. The old NSW vs QLD matches were a bit like City vs Country, played by lesser lights and not attracting much of a following. Qld always struggled because there were few of their best players born and bred north of the border to call on. So the series was revamped, and we finished up with just about anyone who had had a swim in Qld at some time becoming eligible.
Well now the series has become one-sided again and no one wants to face up to what should happen. I am sure we have enough decent players who were born in either QLD or NSW not to need all the other hangers-on, or we could go the RahRah way and just allow anyone to be recruited for the Reds or Sky blues. I feel we are somewhere in between at the moment and the product has lost a lot of its gloss. I haven't watched a series for about 5 years now, and I know plenty of others who's interest has waned.
Well whatever you picked apart from
JohnK's argument seems more eloquent to the point than he expressed it,
if that is what he was trying to get at (and I harbour my doubts - but we won't get to that here).
Oddly we wouldn't be having this same discussion if NSW had won really, but again, what's the use in speculating.
I don't know about heavily one-sided either, because like I mentioned, NSW won the Origin in 2014, breaking a long QLD streak. And before QLD had the streak, the overall score was just about even or actually favoured NSW. Although it seems that QLD "depends" more on players not actually born in its state than NSW, I'm not sure the changes or what not in the eligibility rules primarily resulted in what seems like now a "one-sided" match. The rules on eligibility do my head in.
In any case, the match hype around it still draws a lot of people. Probably not those that remember the origins of Origin (pun intended), but there's plenty of people young (and naive, as it were) enough to refill the ranks. And if they are not in the stadium, then they are surely filling up the pubs and so on, at least from where I see it. In the end, it's just another competition on the side of the main. Everyone knows that as far as using valuable players and the risks of injuries, there is a compromise to be had between playing for the State of Origin and the main NRL competition.
medhead said:
At risk of getting too on topic.
Yeah, agreed. I think there is already a rugby thread around, and/or any further comment here is likely to be censured (or censored, rather).
:mrgreen:
