GEORGIE PARKER: Blueprint to bring AFL state of origin back so it’s not just Victoria against the rest

Gillon McLachlan’s legacy was the introduction of the AFLW and steering the AFL successfully through the COVID years.

Andrew Demetriou’s was expanding the league and bringing footy back to the Adelaide Oval. Along with bringing in the Tasmanian team, could reviving state of origin be Andrew Dillon’s legacy?

I’ve always loved state of origin. I’m of an age that I caught the tailend of it as a kid, but it’s my parents who made me realise how big it was.

Maybe it’s the nostalgia talking, but they speak with such passion about the sold-out crowds and the on-field player rivalries.

I can still see the distaste to Leigh Matthews in my mother’s eyes for apparently “ruining Barrie Robran’s career” during a state match in the 1970’s.

You just need to look at the NRL to see how strong the culture of state of origin is in rugby league – it rivals the grand final as the sport’s pinnacle event each year.

The AFL is now a national sport - much more than the NRL - and this is why it’s so complicated for us.

The Victoria against the Allies concept didn’t work.

As a non-Victorian sure it gave us all the common bond of wanting Victoria to lose, but it didn’t give me the pride compared to seeing the blue, red and yellow like if it were an SA team and I’m sure it didn’t feel the same to a sandgroper not seeing a black swan on a yellow jumper.

So, is there a way we can include the whole country in this concept? Without it being a carnival involving several states, I don’t know how it could.

We don’t have space in the calendar and we don’t have much of the buy in as rugby league to play more than one match a year.

I believe for state of origin to work there can only be three teams - Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.

NSW and Queensland, although starting to become footy factories in their own way, don’t have the history to be part of this, and Tasmania, while some of the greats hail from there, just don’t have the number of players with only 24 AFL players from Tasmania currently on an AFL list.

It can only be a one-off game, it has to be in the season and there needs to be financial incentives for both the players and the clubs for it be ticked off.

My idea, one team in, one team out each year. You win you stay in, you lose, you don’t get to play the next year.

Make the match mean something and make the guernsey your wearing hard to get a hold of.

We want players proud to be part of playing something so at the end of their career, playing in x amount of state of origins sits high on their list of achievements, just like in the NRL.

There’s plenty of theories of where it when it should be played, many say move the pre-finals bye to after the preliminary final and play it then, but then you’d be missing the best players from the grand final.

For me though, if you make winning a state of origin on par with a premiership, it would be something worth risking getting injured for, so you could then play it during the season or even as part of the pre-season as Dillon has indicated in place of the Indigenous All Stars on a rotating bi-annual basis possibly.

The concept would need the entire buy in from league, players and fans.

The only problem I have with bringing state of origin back is that unfortunately, I think the Victorian team would wipe every other state without blinking, and growing up a South Australian and living in Western Australia for 10 years, there’s nothing worse than seeing Victoria win.