Lost in the celebrations of Origin I this year - a game celebrated as the 100th (although that includes the 1987 exhibition game in California) - were the why, when and who of the launching of a concept which has become rugby league’s showpiece and an annual highlight of Australian sport.

The why came down to one thing: Queenslanders were sick of seeing Queenslanders belting Queenslanders on the rugby league field.

For years, Sydney’s poker machine-backed clubs would poach the best of the Queensland-bred league talent and the NSWRL would put them in sky blue jumpers and send them back over the border to bash the locals who were being paid a third as much and who were totally under-prepared for combat at this level.

Queensland had not won an interstate series since 1959 and in the 10 years before 1980, the states had played 29 times and Queensland had won two and drawn two against the 25 wins for the Blues.

In 1973, Queensland fought as bravely as any team had but failed to score a point in the three-match series.

The balance of rugby league power in Australia was impossibly weighted towards NSW and the public on both sides of the Tweed was switching off.

Queensland fans would invariably turn out to Lang Park for the first game of the annual series - 23,000 in 1978 and 24,000 in ’79 -  but Sydney had lost interest.

Interstate games had been consigned to the suburban Leichhardt Oval in 1978 but for the second game of 1980, only 1638 people strolled through the gates to watch NSW wrap up the series 17-7 after having won 35-3 in Brisbane.

The man who would become the King of Origin, Wally Lewis, was a teenager who played in an interstate game at Leichhardt Oval in 1979 (and wore the No.7 jersey) and recalled feeling Sydney’s disinterest in spades.

“We arrived at Leichhardt Oval and thought it was a great crowd, there were people hanging from the rafters and we thought ‘great, at least we’ll have an atmosphere’,” Lewis said.

“We went into the dressing room and got ready and when we emerged for the game, there was hardly anyone left at the ground.

“Apparently they had all been there for a schoolboys final and left when the game was over.

Enough was enough for Queensland administrators, most notably the indomitable QRL boss Ron McAuliffe, who could see interstate football disappearing altogether if the Maroons couldn’t stop the rot.

"They dumped interstate matches at Balmain (Leichhardt Oval) and it was only a matter of time before they dumped them into Botany Bay,” former Labor senator McAuliffe said later.

Not that McAuliffe was the first to dream of getting those Queensland-bred stars out of blue jerseys and into maroon. “Origin” football has been mooted by The Courier-Mail’s Jack Reardon, a former Australian vice-captain (and a New South Welshman), in the mid-1960s and those with even longer memories said it had been suggested by writers in the 1930s.

Many people have claimed credit for Origin over the years but the bottom line was it would never have got off the ground without the man many of us knew as “Gunsynd” because of his shock of white hair.

It was always going to take someone such as McAuliffe to get the Origin idea past the concept stage to being a reality.

The former Coolangatta publican and former joint secretary of the Brisbane and Queensland Rugby Leagues had the imagination to believe in the idea and, as an ex-politician, the persuasive powers to convince the NSW clubs they should give it a go.

McAuliffe was seen by some as a sporting dictator - and one of his favourite sayings about administration was “the best committee is a committee of three with two away sick, permanently” - but it would have been easy for Origin to get lost in a sub-committee.

What convinced McAuliffe that State of Origin could work was a conversation with fellow Rothmans Sports Foundation member and then Victorian Football League president Allen Aylett who pointed out that in 1977, a Victorian side boosted by several WA-bred players had walloped Western Australia by 63 points in an interstate game but when the WA-bred players were allowed to represent their state of origin the result was a 94-point triumph for the Sandgropers, a turnaround of 157 points.

Aylett told McAuliffe not to worry whether the Sydney-based Queensland players would take an Origin game seriously so McAuliffe set about convincing NSWRL and ARL supremo Kevin Humphreys to support the concept.

At a special general committee meeting of the NSWRL in Sydney on May 28, 1980, Humphreys badgered, bluffed and, some say, bullied the Sydney clubs to agree (the vote was 9-3 in favour with Easts, Souths and St George against) to an Origin game that year.

The bluff came when Humphreys threatened that players who were not made available for an Origin match would be stood down from that weekend’s club games. Had they stared the boss down, the clubs would have won that one easily.

The date was set for July 8 and the venue, not unexpectedly considering Sydney disdain for interstate matches, would be Lang Park.

Not everyone was on side, however. Kangaroos and NSW great Bob Fulton declared Origin would be a “total non-event” and sections of the Sydney media said it would be nothing more than a sideshow and there was no way players from the same club would tackle one another with any enthusiasm.

Even in the north, there were critics. Fiery former Queensland coach Barry Muir, the man who coined the term “cockroaches” to describe NSW players, said no Queensland player who had “sold out” to a Sydney club deserved to wear a Queensland jersey.

When it came to picking the teams there was a degree of controversy about what “origin” meant and that debate has continued ever since. For the 1980 game, Queensland chose NSW-born Norm Carr as a reserve while, by any eligibility rules, masterful centre Steve Rogers should have worn maroon because he had played his first senior football in Queensland (for the Southport Tigers) and had represented Queensland Country.

Four Queensland players, Kerry Boustead, Rod Morris, Rod Reddy and John Lang, had already played for NSW (and Australia) in 1980 and they were the first players chosen by the Queensland selectors but there was one name the public (and McAuliffe) wanted to see on the list: Arthur Beetson.

Big Artie was a bone fide Queensland rugby league legend. He had been recruited by Redcliffe from Roma in 1964 and had played in that club’s then-only premiership team before accepting the inevitable offer from the Balmain Tigers.

Beetson  missed the Tigers’ 1969 grand final win over South Sydney but played in premiership sides with Eastern Suburbs in 1974 and ’75. By 1970, he was in the twilight of a great career at Parramatta.

Former QRL secretary, the late Bill Mutton, was adamant Beetson was left out of the first Queensland team presented to McAuliffe, who sent the selectors away to pick the team again with Beetson in it. The surviving selectors always denied this so we had Origin  Legend/Myth No.1

Beetson’s presence was integral to Origin’s success. The young players in the team, Wally Lewis, Chris Close and Co, still tell of being enthralled by the big man’s every word in the two-day training camp and Lewis still says the roar from the Lang Park crowd when Artie appeared in the maroon jersey for the first time was the most memorable moment in his own stellar career.

The big man also was part of State of Origin Myth #2: That he punched Parramatta team-mate Mick Cronin during the match.  The myth has been perpetrated 1000 times since by various writers but the fact was Beetson did not “punch” Cronin. It never happened.

What did happen was that Beetson hit Cronin with a slightly high ball-and-all tackle which would be penalised in the modern NRL.

(Myth 3 involving Beetson was that he played only one game for Queensland. He wore the maroon in the two “residential” interstate matches the following year, was selected for the 1981 but was ruled out with an eye injury).

Beetson was one of eight Sydney-based Queenslanders selected for the inaugural Origin match. One of them, St George centre Graham Quinn, was ruled out, causing a slight shuffle of the Queensland outside backs with youngster Mal Meninga moving from his selected position on the wing into the centres and Easts Tigers speedster Brad Backer joining the squad.

In those days, Origin teams would be named on the Sunday night and the match was played on Tuesday night, so, allowing for interstate travel, the teams would have time for just a bonding session and a light training run or two. There were certainly no extended stays in luxury resorts.

For the group of young players from the Brisbane Rugby League - Meninga, Colin Scott, Chris Close and Lewis, in particular _ this was a chance to rub shoulders with players they had admired for years and they cherished every moment spent with and every word spoken by Beetson.

“We just wanted to spend every minute we could with him,” Lewis said later. “We were hanging on every word and watching every move he made.”

Meninga, who went on to play 32 Origin matches for Queensland (and 46 Tests for Australia) and who has coached the Maroons throughout their record-breaking current run, turned 20 on the day of the inaugural match. He also kicked seven goals from seven attempts, employing the now-unseen toe-poke kicking method.

The sides scored two tries each in the first Origin, so Meninga’s goalkicking was crucial to Queensland 20-10 win.

Powerfully built Redcliffe Dolphins centre Chris Close, 21, was named man of the match, a feat repeated in the 1981 one-off game. Close played nine Origins and was a long-serving team manager through the mid-’90s through to the mid-2000s. There had never been a more passionate Queenslander than the Cunnamulla-born “Choppy”.

The 1980 Queensland team was coached by Toowoomba product and former Manly star John McDonald, a 13-Test veteran who has played three interstate games for NSW. McDonald went on to become a long-serving chairman of the QRL and ARL board member.

Managing that first team were two of Queensland greatest forwards, Duncan Hall and Brian Davies, men who demanded and were given respect wherever they went.

Queensland’s win was hailed by fans from Cairns to Coolangatta. The next day’s Brisbane Telegraph said it all with a front-page headline reading: The night we beat the Blues.

South of the border, they were less impressed and two of the Maroons, Beetson and Balmain’s Greg Oliphant were banished to reserve grade by their clubs, and the critics claimed “it was just an exhibition game” (incredibly, the same critics many years later claimed the only exhibition Origin game ever played, in California in 1987, should be included in official records, possibly because NSW won it).

In 1981, NSW again won the first two interstate games, played on a residential basis and again they used Queenslanders against Queenslanders with Rod Morris and Paul McCabe turning out in Blue jerseys. The second of those games was again played at Leichhardt Oval and drew a crowd of just 6268.

So, it was back to Lang Park for another Origin encounter. There were just two survivors from the 1980 NSW team - centres Steve Rogers and Mick Cronin - while Colin Scott, Brad Backer, Mal Meninga, Chris Close, Wally Lewis, Rohan Hancock, Rod Morris and Norm Carr were retained by Queensland.

NSW raced to a 15-0 lead (tries were worth three points then) and looked to have Queensland’s measure in every department but the Maroons, now coached by Beetson and captained by 21-year-old Lewis scored the next 22 points for a 22-15 victory.

The game featured plenty of brawling as well as an inconsistent performance by New Zealand referee Kevin Steele, who caned NSW 14-5 in the penalties as well as awarding State of Origin’s only penalty try, to Mal Meninga. Queensland’s comeback from 15 points down remains the biggest comeback in Origin history.

To say State of Origin was a resounding success from Day One would be an exaggeration.  The 1981 match at Lang Park drew 25,613 _ 7597 fewer than had turned out in 1980. The first match of the 1982 series drew a less-than-capacity 27,326 which fell to a disappointing 19,435 for Game Two.

NSW broke through for its first Origin win in the opening game of 1982, when residential interstate games were dumped from the schedule. The match featured the debuts of John Ribot and Gene Miles for Queensland and Mal Meninga was voted man of the match on a losing team.

Meninga missed the second match, won 11-7 by Queensland at Lang Park, but would return for the decider at the Sydney Cricket Ground when Queensland won 10-5, thanks to some strange selections and resultant poor team-work by the Blues.

NSW selectors decided, in their wisdom, to pluck winger Phil Duke from the obscurity of the Moree Boomerangs to play on league’s biggest stage. Duke scored a controversial first-half try, when he stepped into touch before grounding the ball for the Blues to lead 5-3 at halftime.

Duke featured again 15 minutes into the second half when fullback Phil Sigsworth collected an innocuous long kick behind his own tryline, then inexplicably attempted a one-handed pass to Duke  in the in-goal area. Duke got nowhere near the ball and Queensland skipper Lewis was on hand to pounce for a try. Needless to say, Duke was never selected again although he maintained he had not called for the ball, as Sigsworth claimed.

The opening game of the 1983 series, played at Lang Park on June 6, featured one of the ugliest and talked-about moments in Origin history when NSW hitman Les Boyd broke Queensland prop Daryl Brohman’s jaw with a vicious elbow to the head. It was a hit that ended Brohman’s season and Boyd’s career.

Incredibly, Boyd was not sanctioned on the field for the incident (he would be sin-binned later after a brawl) and the QRL did not take any further action. That was left to Brohman’s club, Penrith, who cited Boyd, who was then suspended for 12 months.

Queensland won the first match of 1983 but NSW , boosted by eight members of the strong Parramatta Eels side, squared the ledger with a hard-fought 10-6 victory in Sydney when the Blues scored the only four points of the second half.

It was back to Brisbane for the decider on June 28 and it was to be the Wally Lewis show as the Queensland skipper, at the peak of his powers, toyed with a NSW team which had been weakened by injuries. The Maroons led 33-0 just after halftime before taking the foot off the accelerator and coasting to a seven-try 43-22 victory.

NSW winger Chris Anderson scored three tries in the losing side to become Origin’s first hat-trick man but Lewis stood head and shoulders above the rest in a performance which earned him another man-of-the-match award as well as the “King” and “Emperor of Lang Park” nicknames. McAuliffe lauded him as “the high priest of the spectacular”.

Queensland won the first two games of 1984 but there were signs that the Blues were starting to “get” Origin when 29,088 turned out in pouring rain at the Sydney Cricket Ground to watch Queensland wrap up the series 14-2 in a match which featured a memorable brawl in which Chris Close lost his jumper fighting with Ray Price and an equally memorable try by Greg Dowling when a Lewis chip bounced off the crossbar. “We trained for it,” Lewis said later with a sly grin.

The Blues won the third game 22-12 in front of a crowd of only 16,559 at Lang Park but the seeds were sewn for their 1985 campaign when passionate little Canterbury Bankstown halfback Steve Mortimer was recalled and appointed captain.

For the first match of 1985, the Blues, now coached by Terry Fearnley, debuted former Wallaby Michael O’Connor as well as hooker Ben Elias and won 18-2 with O’Connor providing all 18 points  from two tries and five goals.

NSW wrapped up the series 21-14 in front of a then-record 39,068 at the SCG on June 11 although Lewis was again judged man of the match. Mortimer, having succeeded where no other NSW captain had, retired from representative football after the match.

A strange decision to break the Origin series with a tour of New Zealand by an Australian team virtually split down the middle by state loyalties blew up when Fearnley, as Kangaroos coach, dropped four Queenslanders from the Test team for the third Test. McAuliffe called it a “football assassination”, New Zealand won the Test and the deeply divided Kangaroos limped home.

Only 18,825 turned out for the “dead” third Origin which featured a furious Greg Dowling standing in front of NSW coach Fearnley gesturing to the scoreboard which read Queensland 20 – NSW 6.

The first five years of State of Origin had belonged to Queensland but 1985 marked the concept’s acceptance in Sydney and it has never looked back since.

The first six years of State of Origin produced plenty of hits and misses but there were many more to come, right up to today.  Barry Dick picks his top 10 moments of Origin history.

The greatest moments in Origin