‘We’d be open to Gus being involved’: Why Queensland gets Origin, and NSW does not

The NSWRL denies it, Brad Fittler won’t really talk about it, and Phil Gould ignored requests for comment.

Nevertheless, the failed attempt to welcome Gould back into the NSW fold last year provides a perfect snapshot into why Queensland understand State of Origin and the Blues only momentarily grasp it.

Last September, Fittler fronted the board to argue why he should be reappointed NSW coach after losing two consecutive State of Origin series to Queensland.

Part of his pitch was to bring in Gould as his chief adviser, along with former Blues captain — and Fittler’s predecessor — Laurie Daley as an assistant coach.

The idea of bringing Gould on board had spiders all over it, of course. He’s a prickly pear who divides opinion in his commentary role for Channel Nine (publisher of this masthead) and as the Bulldogs’ general manager of football.

But even Gould’s most ardent critics admit few New South Welshmen understand what Origin means, let alone how to coach it, better than he does.

As the state’s most successful coach, with six series wins from his two stints in charge, his Any Given Sunday oratories and mind-manipulation suit the intensity of a six-week campaign.

In the lead-up to a match in the early 2000s, he compared representing NSW to fighting for one’s country. Ex-servicemen addressed the playing group throughout the preparation, talking about the “knock at the door” that would happen during conscription.

Phil Gould rallies his troops as NSW coach in 2004.Credit: Craig Golding

The knock at the door became a call to arms and Gould made subtle references to it throughout the week.

Just before kick-off, he was giving his final instructions before he was interrupted by match officials pounding on the dressing-room door, telling them it was time to play.

“Boys,” Gould said, “there’s your knock at the door.”

Oliver Stone couldn’t have directed it any better.

It’s been suggested the NSWRL baulked at the idea of Gould advising Fittler because it feared the backlash from sections of the News Corp media, with whom Gould has locked horns since Super League.

“They asked a lot of questions on bringing Gus and Laurie back,” is all Fittler would say via text message about the matter. “They offered [me] a four-month contract starting in March. I said no.”

NSWRL chairman Paul Conlon is adamant the board didn’t reject Gould.

“When Brad raised the idea with us, the only question we asked was what role Gus would have,” he said. “That’s all that was said. Any suggestion that we were averse to it is totally wrong.”

Gould remains NSW’s most successful Origin coach.Credit: Fairfax Media

Conlon added: “If Gus ever wanted to get involved, we’d be open to the idea.”

Which is sort of the point. Why isn’t NSW’s most successful coach involved? Why do some of the players who have bled all over their sky-blue jumpers dance around the periphery whenever Origin rolls around? Why is there an indifference to Origin in this state as opposed to Queensland, whose entire identity is defined by what happens in three interstate matches each year?

Or is this belief that Queensland cares more about the jumper simply bullshit?

Gould’s wavering support of his state says as much about him as the NSWRL.

Frame it this way: would Mal Meninga get involved if Queensland needed him?

In 2020, he put aside personal differences with Wayne Bennett — who had undermined him when they were vying for the Australian job in 2016 — to conjure a series win with a far inferior team.

The idea for this piece came in the Chairman’s Room at Magic Round when, on the Friday night, I found myself in a discussion with Fittler and former Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

“What’s wrong with the NSW culture?” Palaszczuk asked Fittler.

“It’s just very different,” he replied, before explaining that the NSW media and the fact that there are nine Sydney clubs, all with fans wanting their own players selected, made for a culture unique to Queensland’s.

Ask any Queenslander and they will tell you their players want it more because it means more to them, a clichéd line that bemuses Blues players past and present.

Those players laugh at how the narrative changes depending on the series result: when NSW dominates, talk inevitably starts about Origin dying; when Queensland dominates, it’s because NSW don’t understand what Origin is about.

Yet it’s true that Queensland have never had to manufacture their Origin identity, nor what it means to them, mostly because of the sizeable chips on their shoulders.

Dream team: Wayne Bennett and Mal Meninga put their differences aside for the Queensland cause.Credit: Getty

As Bennett has regularly said: “I never believed that you had to come from Sydney to be someone in life.”

Notice he said life, not football.

The Origin concept was the brainchild of the late Queensland senator Ron McAuliffe, who wanted players picked according to their state of origin, not the club for which they played. Because rich Sydney clubs financed by licensed premises full of poker machines could poach some of Queensland’s best players, NSW dominated the interstate contests for decades.

Consider the first Origin played at Lang Park in Brisbane in 1980: Blues players tell you they were drunk for days in the lead up to the match, while Queensland had a point to prove after years of being undermanned because of the selection criteria.

Inspired by 35-year-old captain Arthur Beetson, who had been plucked out of Parramatta reserve grade, the Maroons won 20-10.

It wasn’t until 1985 that the Blues broke through for their first series win, inspired by indomitable captain Steve Mortimer, who demanded the team bus be driven down rowdy Caxton Street.

“See that?!” he bellowed at his players pointing at drunken Queenslanders hurling XXXX cans. “They hate us. They hate us!”

Original and best: Artie Beetson.Credit: Fairfax Media

Mortimer, who is suffering from dementia, was the star guest at a gathering of past and present Blues players before official proceedings at Monday night’s True Blues function.

The idea of connecting the past to the present belonged to Fittler’s replacement, Michael Maguire, who is determined to rekindle the state’s passion for the sky-blue jumper.

An intense character even when he’s asleep, Maguire has seemingly sought the opinions of half the state leading into his first series, interviewing past players, officials and senior members of the media.

In meetings with past players, he held a sky-blue jumper in one hand and asked them: “What does this mean to you?”

Maguire loves a prop. As an NRL coach, he bashed lockers with a baseball bat and even wanted to bring a snake into the dressing-room to ram home his point.

The sky-blue jumper is his newest prop: notice he was clutching one when addressing the media on Monday.

Because he was never an Origin player, let alone hero like Fittler, Daley and Ricky Stuart, the new coach’s philosophy is entirely focussed on the team.

“Made for more” is the Blues’ mission statement for this series, and it’s plastered all over the walls of the team room at their hotel in the Blue Mountains.

It reads in part: “Being a Blue, player or fan alike, requires a certain type of resolve. It’s for those who don’t give up, and who don’t rest on past achievements or experiences. Being a Blue might mean you’re going to face more knocks, more pressure and more scrutiny. But when you’re searching for something more, you’ll move mountains to find it and feel it. If you want to be a Blue, you have to be Made for More.”

It’s a counter-argument to Queensland’s perennial claim that it’s the underdog. And it is, despite the Maroons’ imagined inferiority, right.

NSW do have it tougher than Queensland, as Fittler says.

In Queensland, the media is largely complicit in what the coach wants. In NSW, we rarely play those games. When a match is lost, particularly off the back of wild selections like Tevita Pangai jnr last year, the blowtorch is immediately turned on.

Fitter and a score of coaches before him believe the criticism is agenda-driven. In some cases, I’m sure it is. In most, it’s simply an honest opinion.

On his second point, it’s also true that NSW’s fan base is fractured along club lines.

Many fans consider three-time premiers Penrith to be “arrogant”, an unfair description attached to them in early 2021. With so many Panthers in the side, it’s not hard to work out where the hate is mostly thrown whenever the Blues lose.

No matter how much Queensland try to twist it, though, this NSW team will burst onto Accor Stadium on Wednesday night as clear outsiders — in the minds of bookmakers and most judges.

NSW five-eighth Jarome Luai was dropped for game three last year but returns, including an elevated role within the leadership group.

A niggly but also abundantly gifted player, the Panthers playmaker can anger fans — in both states.

On Thursday, he was asked what it meant to represent the good folk of NSW. His response would bring a tear to Steve Mortimer’s eye.

“I’ve always been passionate about my home and my family,” Luai said. “But where I can draw that line of connection is playing for their homes and childhoods as well. My last name will be on my back, but that sky blue represents the people of NSW and how they were brought up in their homes. I’m keen to play for those people.”

Sounds like a player who cares to me.

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