For years we’ve been conditioned to believe in a State of Origin phenomenon known as the “Queensland spirit”. Defined by Greek mythology/Friday Night Lights levels of pride, desire and the ability to overcome adversity, the “spirit” wins credit for energising the tired, inspiring the crestfallen and willing the downtrodden to victory. But only if they wear a Maroons jersey. Why is that?
Before we answer that let’s take a look at the moments which have shaped its creation.
Game 1, 1994. The miracle try. The most famous try in Origin history. Nine passes, sixty metres and a Mark Coyne match winner in the 79th minute. Brilliant.
Game 1, 1998. “Don’t tell me it’s Mark Coyne all over again“. Sadly, for Blues fans, it was.
Game 3, 2001. The Allan Langer comeback tour. All killer no filler.
Game 1, 2005. Matt Bowen’s game winning intercept try.
Game 3, 2006. Deja vu. Darren Lockyer’s series winning intercept try one year later.
Fact: It’s alarming how many times QLD have successfully made comebacks in the final ten minutes of Origin matches. More alarming is the (admittedly butthurt) resignation of the NSW commentators when it happens. They’ve seen this movie before. They saw it again last night. They almost expect it to happen. And so do the Queenslanders. We all do.
The “spirit” prevails again.
Here are five reasons why it might actually be real.
1) BELIEF: A few weeks back, in the post-match after QLD had just lost game two of this year’s series 16-12 , Darren Lockyer asked Cameron Smith if Queensland ever stopped believing they could win. “Yeah, we were always confident mate.” he replied. “I think even there with five or six minutes to go where we had a scrum feed we were confident of winning.”
We can’t remember the last time anything remotely as confident come out of a Blues player’s mouth. From the miracle try onwards, the teams have been conditioned to expect and enact vastly different outcomes when a game is on the line. And its not just the players who believe it. Here’s Phil Gould’s call after Queensland snatched victory in the final minutes of Game 3 in 2006. “Can you believe this? I’m looking over at Paul Vautin – ex-Queensland champion, ex-Queensland champion coach – he’s sitting there like it’s meant to happen. He’s got a big grin on his face, he jumped out of the chair as if to say “Well, what did you think was going to happen?”.
Sterlo summed it up by saying “That’s Origin”. What he really meant was “That’s Queensland”.
2) CIVIC PRIDE: See Billy Moore and the infamous shit-stirring warcry in the 1995 series. The same warcry which echoed through Suncorp Stadium last night. The same warcry to which there seems no apparent NSW equivalent. Sure, “New South Welshman” doesn’t boast the cadence or impact of “QUEENSLANDER!” but it’s like Queenslanders treat playing for their state like some kind of transcendent civic honour on par with being chosen in The Hunger Games Reaping ceremony. You never quite get that impression with The Blues, at least not to the degree of their enemies. Also, we’ve never seen a Blues player literally bleed the colour of their jersey.
3) INFERIORITY COMPLEX: False fact alert: New South Wales is superior to Queensland in almost every conceivable statistic: populace, economic turnover, chest waxes per capita, pomeranian ownership. As a Queenslander, I grew up with that chip on my shoulder that eventually manifested in the belief that the Blues players were a preening pack of mercenaries while Maroons players were passionate loyalists who probably worked part-time as plumbers or farmers or something. Now, even though the states are probably more homogenous than ever and Queensland definitely has the better art gallery, I still get the feeling that Queensland players and their supporters so revel in beating New South Wales as a way to deal with that inferiority complex. Death to the cosmopolitan pretenders! Again, it’s a psychological edge which New South Wales doesn’t reciprocate.
4) UNDERDOG MENTALITY: See the 1995 Origin series. Queensland went in massive underdogs after the Super League/ARL beef disqualified the Super League aligned Broncos players from selection. Queensland went on to win the series 3-0, an achievement which miracle try scorer Mark Coyne would call his favourite Origin moment of all time. The underdog mentality is now so entrenched that it even prevails when Queensland clearly has the better side.
5) TEAM CHEMISTRY: Another area where QLD enjoys a distinct competitive advantage. Why? No draft.
The NRL have yet to implement a draft system which means that youth players are far more likely to be scouted, developed and signed by clubs close to where they live. Right now the competition includes ten New South Wales teams and just three from Queensland, a disparity which means that Maroons players are far more likely to have played with each other for an extended period of time at club level. The value of this cannot be understated. The obvious example is the Brisbane Bronocs which has long been the feeder club through which Origin selectors build Queensland sides. They also happen to be the winningest club side in Rugby League history. For Queensland, the strategic and psychological advantages this creates includes a greater sense of unity, positional continuity and the match-winning potential of key players who are familiar with each other. Think Darren Lockyer and Allan Langer or Matt Bowen and Jonathan Thurston. It even extends, strangely enough, to interstate club players like Melbourne Storm stars Billy Slater, Cameron Smith and Cooper Cronk.
Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images
