It is the grand final Queensland didn’t want, writes Mike Colman

A Raiders win on Sunday would remind NSW powerbrokers that they don’t have a God-given right to hold the biggest game of the year in Sydney, argues Mike Colman.

The grand final fixture is one that Queenslanders could have done without. Picture: Dan Himbrechts

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Well, look on the bright side. It could have been worse.

The Rabbitohs could have beaten the Raiders.

With the Roosters getting over the top of the Storm on Saturday night, Queenslanders have got the grand final we didn’t want.

The grand final fixture is one that Queenslanders could have done without. Picture: Dan Himbrechts

A Raiders-Storm decider would have been just the tonic to let the good people of NSW know that they don’t own the game and that they don’t have a God-given right to hold the grand final in Sydney year in year out.

How good would it have been for them to be sitting in their totally unsuitable, outdated and soon-to-be rebuilt ANZ Stadium watching two “foreign” teams battling it out for the biggest prize in the game?

Maybe then, when the NRL goes back yet again to the bargaining table to play hardball over whether to allow Brisbane to hold just one grand final over the next 25 years, they might do so with a smidgen of humility.

Or not.

Canberra beating the Roosters would be a result for Queensland. Picture: Lukas Coch

Having discussed the possibility of the grand final coming to Brisbane with numerous NSW league followers and media types over the past few weeks one prevailing viewpoint has become evident.

People in Sydney believe that the grand final should be played down there every year for one specific reason.

It always has been.

Which, given that logic, means that footballers should still be playing in leather-stud boots, the game should be unlimited tackles and no clubs should exist in an area where the postcode doesn’t start with the numeral two.

Now I get that the NRL made a deal with the NSW government over funding for the renovation and rebuilding of the State’s hopelessly inadequate major football stadiums.

I get that they had to commit to holding the grand final in Sydney for 25 years in order for NSW taxpayers to stump up the cash needed to bring their facilities into the same century as Suncorp Stadium.

The state-of-the-art facilities at the SCG during the 1977 grand final between Parramatta and St George.

But I also get that a complete stuff-up of the process means that the new-look ANZ Stadium won’t be ready on schedule, thus opening a window of opportunity for Suncorp to step in and bring at least one grand final to Queensland between 2020 and 2022.

Next year’s decider has been pencilled in for the Sydney Cricket Ground which, as its name implies, is a throwback to the pre-TV dark ages when rugby league fans were accepting of sitting a day’s march from the action.

It also offers a fraction of the financial return that Suncorp can provide to the NRL coffers.

Yet, for no reason other than pig-headedness on behalf of the NRL and NSW Government it seems that they are determined to keep the game in Sydney.

Of course should NSW even look like weakening its vice-like grip on the GF you can rest assured that the governments of Victoria, Western Australia and even South Australia will swoop like vultures as they have over Origin.

Suncorp Stadium is the best rugby league ground in the world. Picture: Jason O’Brien

But you’d like to think that the decision-makers at the NRL would look favourably on Queensland’s bid as a payback for the State being the backbone of the sport for the past 30 years.

Let’s not forget that it was Queenslanders who secured the financial future of rugby league by getting behind Origin in 1980; that Queensland has produced the biggest crowds since the introduction of the Broncos in 1988, and Suncorp Stadium is the best rugby league ground in the world.

Hopefully they might spare a thought for that when they watch a non-NSW team go around in the grand final on Sunday.

Go Raiders.