The Maroons have had their Origin team locked in since 1980
NRL website is polling fans to choose their State of Origin team. Hypothetical of course, but why don’t we make this a reality for NSW? Considering their record, there’s nothing worse for the Blues than going full Eurovision.
The Blues’ journey of disappointment begins almost every year with the selection controversy.
James Tedesco or Dylan Edwards? Angus Crichton and Stephen Crichton or Haumole Olakau’atu and Kotoni Staggs?
“We want to apply ourselves to the last moment,” said coach Laurie Daley, referring to the final moment of the Magic Round before deciding on the team.
Ah, I’m spoiled for choice with a bewildering array of options.
“Last impressions are certainly good,” he added with all the confidence of a blindfolded man.
He has a donkey’s tail in his hand.
Queensland, on the contrary… Whatever he does with Billy Slater, Cameron Munster, Reece Walsh and Kalyn Ponga, it is almost certain that he made up his mind some time ago and settled in his thoughts like a chicken in its egg.
You hear the echo of Cameron Smith’s deep, indifferent laughter in the Queensland election. They need to know, you need to discover. No final impression there.
Queensland’s team has been a lock since about 1980.
Since Artie Beetson was drafted from the reserve grade, Queensland have realized that Origin is not fundamentally about selection. Stick the jersey on an out-of-form Bob Lindner or out-of-game Allan Langer and let the magic happen.
Queensland’s selection approach over the years can be summed up in two words: Adam Mogg. Or two more words: Danny Nutley. Or two more words: Terry Cook. Or else… Queensland have managed to transform their limited depth from weakness to bond.
For most of Origin’s history, the start of a Queensland win was scraping the bottom of the selection barrel and looking completely pooped after 10 minutes of the opening game. Gone. Stuffed. Just the way they like it.
NSW, on the other hand, is like Devo’s dog at election time. Freedom of Choice: “He found two bones/ He took one and licked the other/ He walked in circles until he died.”
Sometimes in hindsight it would have been better for NSW to have picked names from a barrel. Or make it a fan vote. Is it too random to rely on folk wisdom rather than experts? This is ridiculous, of course, but no more so than many other aspects of our age where fan engagement is at its maximum.
I can see Peter V’landys loves potential.
According to fan polling conducted in 2026, over a non-trivial sample size of over 20,000, Origin I’s Blues team would consist of: James Tedesco, Brian To’o, Stephen Crichton, Latrell Mitchell, Josh Addo-Carr, Mitchell Moses, Nathan Cleary, Isaah Yeo, Haumole Olakau’atu, Hudson Young, Jackson Ford, Reece Robson and Addin. Fonia-Blake. And a bench consisting of Cameron Murray, Connor Watson, Keaon Koloamatangi and Matt Burton.
If anything, it’s a little more conservative than the team Daley would have chosen, but as someone said after the Farrer byelection, people never get that wrong, right?
From the coach’s perspective, the most important benefit of a team chosen by the fans is that the blame can be placed on all voters. If the fans’ team loses, Daley might throw up his hands and say it wasn’t his fault. But that would be as logically flawed as saying it was his fault for selecting the wrong players. Election simply seems to be the key to winning. In fact, it rarely is.
The purpose of a fan-elected team is not to relieve the pressure on the coach, but to focus him on his core job; That is, instead of wasting his energy lying awake every night trying to pick the password like a safecracker, he sprinkles a Blue-colored magic powder on his assigned players. This was Michael Maguire’s secret as Blues coach. As a virtually non-playing captain, he could make completely random choices like Jake Trbojevic and it wouldn’t matter.
The coach’s job is not to micromanage staff and if NSW don’t understand that after 40-odd years of being ambushed, then they haven’t learned anything. The trick, Maguire thought, was to accept your lemons and make some lemonade to squirt into Queensland’s eyes.
Of course, the Achilles heel of the Eurovision model is that some evil Queensland-based agent can sneak in and manipulate the vote, or stack the branches to build the team around Dragons combinations by naming Connor Tracey at full-back, Jason Saab at wing and Kyle Flanagan at halfback in a public poll. Barnaby Joyce stars as the puppet half. No offense, but that’s what Queensland would do. So you need to get the Australian Electoral Commission involved somewhere. But that too could lead to tax exemption, and there’s nothing the NRL loves more than that.
Like most genius ideas, the fan-chosen NSW Origin team idea was years ahead of its time. Maybe many, many years. But for the Blues, endless worrying about selection, chopping and shifting, scapegoating, finger-pointing and second-guessing are often on the scoreboard. People could do Daley a big favor: As Devo puts it: “Freedom of choice is what you have/Freedom of choice is what you want.”
Malcolm Knox is a journalist, author and columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.
