Origin Buzz: Stats prove State of Origin hasn’t ruined integrity of NRL

State of Origin supposedly ruins the integrity of the NRL season. Here are the stats to prove those critics wrong, via PHIL ROTHFIELD.

Nathan Cleary is one of seven Panthers players (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

And so another year of State of Origin is over and the Maroons are champions.

No more rep weekends, no more split rounds and no more interruptions to the main game.

The Panthers are resting their seven superstars against the Wests Tigers but, after this weekend, all teams are back on a level playing field for the run home to the finals.

Eight games each weekend, all players available.

There’s no denying everyone loves State of Origin, again proven by sell-outs in Sydney, Perth and Brisbane over the last six weeks.

The Channel 9 television ratings have been up above three million each game on all platforms.

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Nathan Cleary is one of seven Panthers players (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

It’s still the showpiece event of the year, worth tens of millions of dollars in revenue to the NRL, even if it’s no longer the best 34 players in competition.

And, importantly, this season it hasn’t affected the integrity of the competition as much as in previous years.

The Panthers have provided seven players — Isaah Yeo, Nathan Cleary, Jarome Luai, Liam Martin, Brian To’o, Stephen Crichton and Api Koroisau — but remain unbeaten since Origin started.

The Cowboys have provided six players — Valentine Holmes, Reuben Cotter, Jeremiah Nanai, Murray Taulagi, Thomas Dearden and Tom Gilbert — and are also unbeaten.

Nothing has changed at the bottom of the ladder either — the Warriors, Titans and Wests Tigers provided only one player between them, Tino Fa’asuamaleaui.

Plus the Warriors, for the first time in history, didn’t even have a New Zealand Test player.

Yet over the last six weeks they’ve been as hopeless as previously with just one win between them.

This shows up the imbalance of the playing strength across the competition even more so.

That the top sides can be missing almost half of their rosters but still be much stronger than the weaker teams.

It’s a credit to the people in charge at the Panthers and the Cowboys.

They have built and developed strong 30-man rosters, not just 17-player squads.

The Sydney Roosters are the one club that has suffered. They’ve had four Origin players — Daniel Tupou, James Tedesco, Lindsay Collins and Angus Crichton — and haven’t won a game since the series started.

Still they were playing ordinary football long before the Origin interruption.

The fact the competition hasn’t been hugely impacted this year will more than likely convince the NRL to keep the keep the schedule as it is.

Even Origin-related injuries have been limited to three — Xavier Coates, Payne Haas and Cotter plus the Origin 3 concussion cases.

Now we’ve got the run home to the finals and the chance fatigue will set in among the Origin players at the back end of the season.

Penrith is doing the right thing resting their stars this weekend.

Yet other clubs don’t have the luxury of being six premiership points clear at the top of the ladder.

Clubs like the Roosters and Storm need to fight their way out of form slumps to start winning again.

There’s so much at stake with five sides in a log jam for the final couple of semi-final positions.

At the other end of the table there’s a battle just as intense to avoid the wooden spoon.

Welcome back to the footy season.

Originally published as Origin Buzz: Stats prove State of Origin hasn’t ruined integrity of NRL