It’s a pity because the concept has produced some of the game’s greatest moments. One of them came on a rainy night at the SCG in 1990 when footy minnows New South Wales beat the mighty Victoria by 10 points.

Swans coach John Longmire (Then playing for North Melbourne) kicked eight goals, a teenager called Wayne Carey chipped in with one himself and Terry, Neale, Anthony and Chris Daniher played together for the first time.

Terry is the oldest of the four and going into the historic match had done it all in football. He’d played almost 300 games and was skipper of Essendon’s back to back flags in 1984 and 1985 but the chance to represent his home state and play alongside all his brothers was a special occasion.

“It was a terrific time,” Daniher recalls. “Anthony was pretty rock solid at that stage of his career but for Neale to get back (from his knee injuries) and get rolling again and for Chris to improve his game to that level made it a special night.

“At the time I didn’t think too much about it. It was just business as usual trying to win the game. It was a Tuesday night game and we’d played on the Sunday and had another game coming up on the Saturday. Going into games you’ve got the blinkers on and you want to do the best you can to help your team mates.”

While Terry had his game face on his proud dad Jim was one of the brave 13,482 who were at the SCG and the happiest of the Daniher clan.

“I’ve never seen dad happier than when we knocked those Vics off,” Terry said.

“He got his way into the rooms, I don’t know how, and he was hugging everybody there.”

Jim was a footballer of note himself and played rugby league for the Riverina against Great Brittan in 1954 scoring two tries. After the win over Victoria he hit the tiles with his four sons, and two of his and wife Edna’s seven daughters. They celebrated long and hard into the night. On their travels they came across Victoria’s cheer leader Ted ‘EJ’ Whitten who was drowning his sorrows.

“I got into Teddy after the game and said time for you to shout us a few beers,” Terry said.

“He bought a few beers for the boys but he was shattered.”

It was EJ’s passion for his beloved Vics which drove State of Origin football through the 1980s and 1990s. Until the SCG match the concept revolved around Victoria’s rivalry with traditional footy states South Australia and Western Australia.

Only 12 months earlier Victoria had won one of the greatest Origin games ever when Tony Lockett (five goals), Jason Dunstall (four) and Dermott Brereton (three) beat South Australia in front of 91,960 at the MCG.

The SCG crowd on May 22 1990 was a fraction of the G’s but it didn’t diminish the passion of the New South Welshmen led by Longmire. His match-winning eight goals came in very heavy conditions and against A-grade opponents including Stephen Silvagni, Danny Frawley and Chris Langford.

After the match Longmire crossed paths with Whitten as well.

“Ted Whitten was beside himself,” Longmire said.

“Brett Alison and I played the following week for Victoria and got beaten and Ted held a grudge and said we’d never play for Victoria again and he was right.”

Coached by then Swans coach Col Kinnear, NSW had a few Victorian-born players in their team including Barry Mitchell, Stephen Wright, David Bolton, Mark Eustice and Neil Cordy plus one West Australian in John Ironmonger. At the time the rules for State of Origin had some flexibility which also allowed players like Daniher, Longmire and Queenslander Jason Dunstall to play for Victoria.

Dunstall didn’t play at the SCG match but the quality of the Victorian team was first class and also included Dermott Brereton, Dale Weightman, Gavin Brown, Paul Salmon and Barry Stoneham.

“I saw the Vics getting off the bus in the rain and I knew we had ‘em,” Daniher said.

“When it pissed down and I think that helped us and we enjoyed it. We knew we could break even with them, you could feel it in the game that we were matching them. We were doing well at the stoppages and edged them at the contest and flogged it out.

“We had horse in front of goal kicking everything and Billy (Brownless) kicked a couple and we chimed in with a few more and it finished off the good work from the defenders.”

Longmire grew up in Corowa and has spent the last 15 years in Sydney and says the win was enormous for football north of the Murray River.

“It was a very important result for footy in NSW,” Longmire said.

“It was a special night, to be able to play against Victoria was extremely rare in itself but to be able to play the Vics at full strength in Sydney at the SCG and to beat them was amazing. It’s 25 years ago now and I still come across players who talk about how great the win was. I think it had an effect on NSW footy in some small way because it was going through tough times.”