Origin for Auckland? Believe It, Cobber
1By Paul Montague (aka The Spotter)
It would surely go off like a bomb dropped onto Andrew McFadden’s house from Konrad Hurrell. That being a future State of Origin match being held at Eden Park. There is enough rivalry and spite here alone between Blue and Maroon disciples to fill Eden Park one and a half times over. Then add in all the Ockers who would pile over and you could probably sell out two consecutive games here.
You could be almost sure that everyone from Mr Barflybarleaner at the Papatoetoe Cozzie Club to Mr Pricewaterhousecooper supping on his craft brew down at The Viaduct would pile onto the bandwagon.
If it were to become a reality, wait for the NRL publicity arm to put the corresponding division of the NZRU to shame with their slick and over-the-top promotion.
Even the Warriors’ launch of ‘95 would struggle excitement-wise by comparison. You would probably have to hark back ten years further to 1985 and the feeling that Graham Lowe’s Kiwis generated in an epic series versus the Kangaroos to generate the kind of talk that having the Origin here would result in.
On the topic of promotion, like a Greg Chappell-ordered underarm straight at the toes of Brian McKechnie, the walk off and snub of Cameron Smith’s end-of-game speech by the New South Welshmen was so utterly classless and disrespectful that it will likely guarantee at least another five to seven years of hate and derision amongst the two camps, players and fans alike.
Ah, where can you buy free publicity like that nowadays? Thank you Mr Gallen.
And just finally, a complaint. What is with all the pushing and shoving when someone has provoked half the other team? I’m not advocating an MMA-style bloodbath to resolve such issues, but will we ever get to see another smack in the chops in Origin again? All this prissy pushing and collar grabbing is wearing a bit thin. It looks like the Boxing Day sales gone a bit wrong. Sort it out once and for all for goodness sake fellas. You know you want to anyway.
*Email me to chat sport or with a reaction to the above: talltree@xtra.co.nz
Further to the piece I wrote above, there are a couple of elephants in the room when it would come to an attempt to bring Origin to Eden Park. One, as Graham the editor rightly points out, is the power wielded by the Eden Park Residents Association.
The other is something that I would say is ‘the drain of disrepute’- the it seems almost weekly or bi-weekly story on the back sports page of any major Sydney daily pertaining to the illegal, anti-social or just plain idiotic behaviour of an ever-growing number of NRL players- the worst example lately being Corey Norman of course.
Norman in fact could just about be the tipping point. The NRL is rapidly losing integrity and credibility with this continuing strife and fans have had more than a gutsful already. So attracting people to an Origin here if it were to happen, may not be so much a case of promotion for the NRL boffins, but rather a campaign for damage limitation and restoring credibility, starting with tougher and non-negotiable sanctions for future transgressors of NRL player behaviour codes. Todd Greenberg, are you listening?