Dragons v Storm to miss $8.5m of talent ahead of Origin III

When St George Illawarra take on ladder leaders Melbourne on Thursday night, fans at WIN Stadium will be missing out on almost a full team’s worth of representative talent.

Tyson Frizell will be busy with the Blues. Image: AAP Image/Richard Wainwright

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Here’s another classic example of State of Origin’s massive impact on the NRL regular season and why something needs to be done to address the issue.

NRL fans will be robbed of $8.5 million of talent when the patched-up St George Illawarra Dragons run out to tackle runaway competition leaders Melbourne on Thursday night.

With the 10th placed Dragons fighting to stay in finals contention, taking on the Storm couldn’t have come at a worse time.

St George Illawarra will be without $6 million of its playing roster while Melbourne will be missing a conservative estimate of $2.5 million.

Tyson Frizell will be busy with the Blues. Image: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

The Dragons will be without five Origin representatives in Paul Vaughan, Tyson Frizell, Tariq Sims, Corey Norman and Ben Hunt. On top of that Gareth Widdop, James Graham and Zac Lomax are injured while Jack de Belin is suspended through the NRL’s ‘no fault’ stand down policy.

That’s a combined total of 1,396 NRL games that will be out of action for the Red V, which also includes eight of the club’s 10 highest paid players.

The Storm will also be without six Origin stars including Cameron Munster, Felise Kaufusi, Will Chambers, Josh Addo-Carr, Dale Finucane and Christian Welch while Curtis Scott is sidelined through injury.

Ben Hunt will be focused on saving Queensland’s hopes. Image: AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts

Incredibly, Smith (398 NRL games) and Jesse Bromwich (216) have a combined total of 614 NRL games, 110 more games that the entire Dragons’ starting pack which only boasts 504 games.

The Dragons starting pack is likely to include Jeremy Latimore, Cameron McInnes, Blake Lawrie, Luciano Leilua, Jacob Host and Korbin Sims.

Latimore (175 NRL games) and Korbin Sims (126) are the Dragons’ two most experienced forwards while Host, Leilua and Lawrie have all played less than 40 games.

The Storm won this corresponding match last year by a whopping 52-30.

Any other week, the opposition would be happy Cameron Munster wasn’t playing. Image: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

To put in perspective the massive impact this representative schedule has on the NRL regular season, the Sydney Roosters and South Sydney sit second and third respectively on the NRL ladder yet have won just one game between them since round 12.

Every season we go through the same debate and the message from the NRL is pretty much for the clubs to suck it up.

While no NRL coach would ever not encourage their players to aspire to take part in rep footy, no one can deny the repercussions are enormous.

Wayne Bennett has previously put forward a suggestion that he believes would help minimise the impact but it has fallen on deaf ears.

Bennett’s idea is to play the three Origin games each on a 10-day turnaround and include an international rep round while really promoting the women’s Origin and a selection of junior representative clashes to fill the void.

It would only include one NRL round where all Origin players would not be available for their clubs.

As it stands it is a shambles given the NRL has no clue which clubs will be most affected when the draw is initially released, and even the Origin television ratings have been down this year.

Originally published as Dragons v Storm to miss $8.5m of talent ahead of Origin III