NRL refuses to guarantee State of Origin double up in Brisbane or Sydney

THE NRL has refused to guarantee that Brisbane or Sydney will in future host a second State of Origin game in a series after the league confirmed a game in 2020 will be held in Adelaide.

THE NRL has refused to guarantee that Brisbane or Sydney will in future host a second State of Origin game in a series.

This comes after the NRL announced it had sold off an Origin game to the South Australian Government, which paid as much as $8 million to host a game at the Adelaide Oval in 2020.

The NRL will take Origin matches to the Melbourne Cricket Ground this year, Perth’s 60,000 Optus Stadium next year and the 53,500-capacity Adelaide Oval in 2020.

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Wally Lewis, Queensland’s “King’’ of Origin, said he could see there were compelling financial reasons for taking the attractions outside NSW and Queensland, especially after the payments bounty reaped players last year which increased their total wages by 52 per cent.

But he said Origin players still wanted most to play for their state in Brisbane or Sydney.

The NRL refused to confirm or deny if the practice of selling off one game per year would extend beyond 2020.

Adelaide will be the final state capital to host an Origin match.

“The NRL has confirmed the next three-year cycle of State of Origin matches. There has been no confirmation beyond that,’’ the spokesman said.

The three “frontier’’ states for the code will be encouraged to bid again and the NRL would welcome the NSW or Queensland Governments entering the process.

But successive Queensland Governments have been against a match fee to host a second Origin match, which it did last year at Suncorp Stadium.

Asked how growing league as a game is achieved by taking an Origin game to Australia’s smallest state mainland capital, an NRL spokesman said: “With support from the South Australian Government for State of Origin, money which will be generated from playing Origin in Adelaide will flow back into the game.

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“There are also challenges around stadium availability in Sydney during this period.

“We want to continue to grow the series and taking it to Adelaide in 2020 will enable us to reach people who may not have watched Origin previously.’’

Lewis said he did not blame the NRL for “trying to cash in’.

“The Queensland players would say they’d prefer to play a game in Sydney than somewhere like Adelaide, because the feeling surrounding the game in Sydney would be more intense,’’ Lewis said.

“I can understand why the NRL are doing it. There has been recently a whisper about the amount of money which had been lost to the players (in the collecting bargaining agreement) and that was one reason they were taking Origin away, to earn some money.

“The question is, are we getting away from what Origin has been since 1980 — a game between two states and we play home or we play away, but we get a chance to show what Origin football means to us. That can’t be reproduced when we play in Melbourne or in America.’’

Lewis had played in perhaps the wildest Origin expansion game of all time, the 1987 exhibition match in Long Beach, California.

The NRL said a Queensland Government has never engaged in offering a match fee to bring a second game to Brisbane in any year.

NRL CEO Todd Greenberg last year would not discount the possibility of selling an Origin game to an Asia city such as Singapore or Hong Kong or to Auckland.

After hosting Origin games this century in 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2018, Melbourne is expected to bid for another match at the MCG in 2021.

Originally published as NRL refuses to guarantee State of Origin double up in Brisbane or Sydney