Paul Kent: How the State of Origin rivalry is reborn with 2018 rookies
THE retirement of Maroons stars and the cleaning out of NSW under Brad Fittler has reignited the rivalry between both states, writes PAUL KENT.
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WALLY Lewis found his hate for NSW came young and easily, like such things often did with Wally.
It required nothing more of him way back then than turning up each year to watch NSW give it to Queensland in the annual interstate series, and often with a fair sprinkling of former Queensland players among the starting 13.
It still pains Queensland that Arthur Beetson played 18 games for NSW before he wore a Maroons jersey even once.
The magic and menace of Origin was born in those early days.
The Queenslanders got sick of losing year after year and when the Origin format put them on even ground, or close to it, they sought retribution.
Nearly 40 years later and Origin needed no reinvention, of course, but the series never looked more shiny than it did Monday night when Kevin Walters revealed his Queensland team filled with generational change, only to be trumped hours later by Brad Fittler’s 11 debutants.
The series was getting tired under Queensland’s mighty reign of 11 series wins in 12 years.
It was always exciting, but the movie never seems as good when you can pick the ending and Origin began to go that way.
Origin began only because the reverse used to be true.
In the dozen years before Beetson ran out in the first Origin game, with a 20-year-old Lewis at lock, Queensland won just three games against the Blues’ 31.
The Blues dominated throughout his most impressionable years.
That run fuelled Lewis’s hate of NSW. Same with Chris Close, Mal Meninga, Colin Scott, the core of Queensland passion.
Lewis played like he needed somebody to hate, which was lucky for him because NSW found something for him to hate nearly every time.
In the beginning it was as simple as Ray Price playing for NSW.
When NSW and Australian coach Terry Fearnley sacked Lewis and several others in 1985 the civil war lost all civility.
Some years back the Queensland players got up to each give their reason why they hated NSW and when Close, then the team manager, stood in front of the players his face turned red with emotion before tears began to well his eyes.
He sat down, not able and not needing to say a word.
The State of Origin rivalry was built on Queensland hate.
Fed by Beetson, nourished by Lewis, it became self-perpetuating.
The hate between states was real and violent and all Queenslanders had to do was get on the back of it.
Now it has turned, though.
NSW last dominated State of Origin in 2005 when Danny Buderus’s Blues took out Game III to win their third series in a row.
The Blues were in such a healthy state there was no telling when it might end.
There was concern across the game for Queensland, who scratched for players and asked NSW if they could grab the young centre out of Kempsey, whose name was Inglis.
The Blues knew he was NSW-qualified but overlooked it.
On Monday Greg Inglis was named Queensland captain.
Inglis has played 30 Origins, or nine less than the entire NSW squad, and his career has been nothing short of pain the whole way.
Nathan Cleary was seven when the Blues notched that third straight series win.
He knows nothing but misery as a NSW fan.
Latrell Mitchell and Tom Trbojevic were eight. Josh Addo-Carr and Angus Crichton were nine.
The only player old enough to shave was James Maloney, then 19.
Their only respite came in 2014 when NSW snapped the streak at eight before Queensland resumed normal programming the season after.
Essentially, though, their entire teenage years are filled with Queensland dominance.
Not one NSW player has played in a series win (Boyd Cordner missed the first two matches which NSW won but played in the third game which the Blues lost back in 2014).
They don’t know what it feels like.
Fittler has named a fresh team for many reasons, one of which is to remove the scars of Queensland’s superiority from the playing mindset.
But who carries the burning resentment of Queensland’s dominance from their teenage years and now waits the chance for their own retribution?
Those early Queenslanders turned it into a dark art.
When there was no slight they imagined there was one, and still do.
Queensland quickly assumed underdog status after the news that Cameron Smith will join Johnathan Thurston and Cooper Cronk in representative retirement but, equally as quickly, they are offended that they are considered little chance to win the series.
This Origin series has a whole fresh look about it.
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