How AFL can ensure future success of revived concept

Weitering Moment

The whole concept of a resurrection might have collapsed at the first hurdle, if that had been the fall of two huge bodies on Jacob Weitering before even half a quarter had been played.

When Weitering collapsed under the 200kg weight of two players and was lifted off the ground into a cart and taken to hospital, with his ribs, shoulder and head crushed, it could have resulted in any future State of Origin game ending there.

It was a similar moment to when Andy Collins, playing for Victoria, ran towards South Australia’s Tony Hall, his Hawthorn teammate, and Hall’s leg buckled under him. He destroyed both his knee and his starting games in one tackle years ago. Fans, clubs and players will tolerate injuries to a point.

The number of clubs who called Carlton after the game and sent messages of concern for Weitering was a measure of how worried they were about their own players in the game.

As is often noted, players get injured in training and friendlies. Look no further than the moment Tom Green took a knee during Friday’s GWS training.

But there is something about getting injured while playing for someone else that makes the injury a little less acceptable. This brings us to the point that needs to be investigated further for the AFL to convince clubs that the concept is more than a one-off concept.

Weitering fortunately did not suffer any serious injuries from the incident. So what if he did?

Clubs who asked the AFL about insurance coverage for Origin players when the game was first mooted last year said the idea of ​​insurance was turned down to them.

OK. So what if Weitering, instead of being fine, got injured and missed eight weeks of the season for the sake of controversy? Carlton have a one-year contract with Weitering and suddenly they can’t have players for part of the season because he has played a game in the league and not for his direct employer.

As someone from the club put it, let’s say Weitering’s annual earnings were $920,000 (Origin players’ salaries averaged around a million a year, so that’s a fair figure). Broadly speaking, that works out to $40,000 per game for 23 games in the season, excluding finals (this is Carlton, after all). And yes, players are paid for the entire year, including preseason training, and not just for the games, let’s look at that at $40k per game for the sake of argument.

So in this case of missing eight games, Carlton should theoretically be entitled to compensation of $320,000 (eight missed games, $40,000 per game).

Currently the club bears all the financial risk. The AFL needs to at least share the financial risk to persuade them to continue offering its players to this concept designed to bring more money into the game. They need to be better prepared to compensate clubs if they lose a player from the season who is injured while playing in Origin.

At the very least, if the compensation is not directly financial in the form of payment of at least some of the games missed, then some sort of salary cap relief should be granted to the club for losing one of its best players. The other point of this is that those brought into Origin games are the clubs’ best players, not substitutes who can be replaced.

The only way the concept will continue beyond being a fun one-off is with club support.

Now that the game has been played and will be deemed a success, the AFL needs to create a suitable framework for it.

Maybe it’s a four-year rotation around the country. South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas has shown a love of bringing events to his state and so would no doubt be pushing for an SA match against Victoria or WA next year.

The AFL is investing heavily in northern markets; An Allied team comprising Queensland and NSW makes sense, even if it opposes the competition that makes the NRL origin concept work.

The State of Origin concept has proven to be worth continuing, but to do so more work needs to be done to correct the flaws, otherwise it will be weakened and eroded before it can take root.