AFL great Garry Lyon is embarrassed the code has ignored State of Origin

With the NRL ready to flaunt its showpiece event in Melbourne an AFL great is fuming his code abandoned State of Origin

Fox broadcaster Garry Lyon during the Round 20 AFL match between the Essendon Bombers and the Port Adelaide Power at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Saturday, August 3, 2019. (AAP Image/Mark Dadswell) NO ARCHIVING, EDITORIAL USE ONLY

West Coast sensation Harley Reid should be wearing a Victorian jumper and playing alongside Collingwood star Nick Daicos sometime this year according to AFL great Garry Lyon who labelled it a “disgrace” that State of Origin football has been abandoned.

The NRL will flaunt its showpiece at the MCG in June and Lyon, who played for and captained Victoria, said he was “embarrassed” the AFL couldn’t support a similar product.

True AFL State of Origin has not been played since Victoria took on South Australia in 1999 amid reluctance from clubs to release players with more interest in winning a premiership than a one-off game in which players could get injured.

Richmond star Dustin Martin was more recently named best on ground in a one-off pre-season clash between Victoria and an All-Stars team in 2020.

But after Queensland’s NRL Origin coach Billy Slater declared the “game owns the players”, Lyon launched in a plea for the AFL to get back on board.

“It is an unmitigated disgrace that we don’t have State of Origin football,” Lyon said on Wednesday.

“I know people say, ‘you’re flogging a dead horse’.

AFL legends Tony Lockett (L) & Gary Ablett playing for Victoria in 1995

“It’s an out and out disgrace that we don’t have it. I’m embarrassed that we don’t.

“We gave it up, we ceded control of the golden ticket and now they’re going to wander into our town in the middle of the football season and have 95,000 people watching their State or Origin while we play tiddlywinks in the corner.”

Lyon said the clubs holding back the idea had to “look beyond” their own ambitions and that those in charge had “let us down badly”.

“On June 26, it’s Victoria versus whoever, Harley Reid would be playing for Victoria, Nick Daicos would be playing for Victoria, Zak Butters would be playing for Victoria,” he told SEN. .

“Tell me why we don’t have that in our game? It is a disgrace!

“Didn’t you hear Billy Slater? The game owns the players. Give something back.

“The clubs’ entitled view on things - look beyond it. It’s beyond you. Grow this game.

“We are getting taken over by the game in the northern states in the eyes of the country. We will become a little, small game and code again that pleases ourselves when we had the capacity to please the broader community.

“Reid, Daicos, Butters against Gulden, Heeney, Warner, all playing at the elite top level. Their CVs are worse off for not having been able to establish themselves in games at that level.

“Those that run the game, you have let us down badly.”