www.couriermail.com.au/sport/nrl ... 6662057361

www.couriermail.com.au/sport/nrl ... 6662057361

I bet every rugby league player would like to play SOO its a pity we don't have the same type of games in this country it would be great

Origin is great rugby, but fake, you can hear the beancounters scrabbling for a plan to get the Burgess bros. into that game by whatever means necessary, and they will.

Do Qs and NSWs [ireally[/i have this burning hatred for each other, and a burning desire over everything to triumph against them in Origin? Of course not.

Rather, the game is such a major and super-hyped event, played at such a high level, in front of such a wild audience, that they would get as pumped even if it was billed as Muppets v Smurfs. Playing on such a stage, there's be something majorly wrong with them if they didn't.

Like two boxers in a major fight, the players - as professionals - feed off the hype to work themselves up and are ready for it at kickoff, and just like a boxing match, we love to buy into the hype, even though we know it is in the vast majority of cases phoney.

All the crowd stuff is fake too. People all play out their act for the day, because it's plainly extremely enjoyable, but they then walk off and have a beer. The game is real, but the mate against mate hype is as genuine as that in WWF. As a concept, Origin is, more than anything else, a true triumph of solid and determined marketing.

That is why Burgess (or any player worth his salt) would of course love to play it. When he does, the fact that he is from the other side of the planet, and not from either Q nor NSW, will not detract from his game one bit.

One sentence in that article sums up my frustration with Rugby League... it says that if you haven’t lived in Australia before the age of 13, you “can’t play in the game’s greatest contest”

Just remind me again who the World Champions are in Rugby League? Origin may be a high standard but until we recognise that international Rugby League should be our primary focus we will always be looking inward and not outward

One of the better descriptions of commercial sport I've seen.

Why would Australia want to make international rugby league its primarily focus? They seem to be doing just fine by ignoring international rugby league and looking inwards at their domestic game.

What's in it for them to put importance in the international game when they've got AFL, union, soccer, etc at their doorstep trying to take their fans.

That is partly why Australian RL has become so successful- they have mastered the art of bigging it up as a product and there is nothing Australians enjoy more than a self congratulatory love in. Contrast that to the English and RL fans here in particular, we put ourselves down.

Ultimately it comes down to culture, Australians will always be much easier to win over. Take origin in its current form, when the three game model was first adopted there was a lot of scepticism and people couldn't see the point, but after a few years they accepted it and it has grown in strength from there. As a midseason test Exiles could be the same, but I can't see England fans ever warming to it.

If the origin eligibility rules were changed (again) so that Burgess could play, very few in NSW would complain. League fans here are still hyperventilating over Rangi Chase nearly two years on.

On SL BackChat this week, it was suggested that the Exiles concept is coming to a natural end (at about 10pm on Friday, most likely) as, due to the relatively strong Australian dollar, we will have both a weaker Exiles team, and half the obvious England/GB team selection already playing down under. The idea came up to play a midseason game in Australia, so that we actually have the Australian-based players 'available' (though, if it's not a full international game, I don't think clubs are obliged to release them anyway - no matter where the game is played) for a full squad.

So, if there's an appetite from British players to play in Origin, maybe extending the series a bit to have England play QL and NSW would satisfy that? It's a level below international, like the Exiles, but still a level above the usual opposition; it would allow the full first-choice squad to play together; and it could be a marketing coup: "Mate against mate, state against state, and also against the evil stuck-up Pommie imperialist overlords". Initially, the England games might be looked on patronisingly as an easy warm-up for QL/NSW, until England started winning some, at which point we'd have a stronger international side.

Two England v QL/NSW games could be played over a two-week period, and the final SOO game could be considered part of the round-robin, possibly making it more meaningful if SOO is a dead rubber. On the downside, we lose 10-15 top UK-based players for two weeks but, if we're already restructuring the league, it could be possible to build that gap in for the sake of international development. Also, if we can't even beat the state sides, who's going to take us seriously as an international side?

Not that the NRL will bite, I suppose. I'd watch it, though.

Sorry, LeightonP, but that is a terrible idea.

Fair enough. Why?

I do too, but it doesn't mean I should or will.

I think you are mistaken on pretty well all of your points.

When have any fans from Qld or NSW wanted to adopt a played born and developed to a reasonable talent from overseas.
The rules of SOO have seen some argument regarding who is Qld and NSW but do you really think Sydney fans want to cheer on Sam Burgess?
NO WAY IN THE WORLD.

Sounds good to me...

Sounds a bit mental to me.
Why do you think Australians regard "Pommies" as imperial overlords? maybe before WWII
Australia has been far more aligned with the USA since the 1950's than England and in the last two decades with Asia mainly Japan and now China.
I doubt many Aussies know or understand what the connection is with Great Britain, its was two generations ago.

Inherent insecurity. [1]

It was a joke about the over-the-top marketing of pitching 'mate against mate' as if they really hate each other. You could market games against England on the same sort of basis, if you wanted to hype up a hostile or antagonistic atmosphere in the way FA was talking about.

[1] This is a joke, too.