DARREN MONCRIEFF
Wednesday 13 June 2012
AFL players want State of Origin football to return, if an informal poll by the AFL Players' Association is any guide.
With club premierships the ultimate goal in a football code entirely domestic at a professional level, it seems AFL players are seeking to fill the void that representative footy once did.
With Queensland and NSW in rugby league in the middle of their annual Sate of Origin series, the code that invented the concept in 1977 last saw a State of Origin match in 1999.
In 2008, a State of Origin Victorian side played an All-Star 'Dream Team', that game a celebration of 150 years of Australian football, seen by just over 69,000 fans at the MCG.
A poll was recently conducted by Melbourne newspaper The Herald Sun, and the result was almost unanimously in favour of a return to representative football.
The first true match with State-of-origin rules in October 1977 saw Western Australia thump Victoria by 94 points in Perth. In June of that year, an interstate match featuring the same States but without those rules saw Victoria, with VFL-based WA players in the side, defeat the Sandgropers by 63 points.
The series proved popular with players and fans alike. The reord crowd for State of Origin remains the 1989 match between Victoria and South Australia which saw 91,960 cram into the MCG.
Before State-of-origin rules, Victoria, with a larger population base and wealth, largely dominated interstate football.
Frustrated, in 1975 the WAFL's Subiaco Football Club's then marketing manager Leon Larkin began working with his VFL counterparts to implement rules that would see footballer play for their States of origin.
His plan succeeded and the imbalance on the scoreboard was immediately corrected when WA defeated Victoria two years later.
The first recorded interstate football match was between Victoria and South Australia in Melbourne in 1879.
Following the emergence of a national club competition, which saw West Coast and Brisbane join the VFL (1987), then Adelaide (1991), Fremantle (1995) and Port Adelaide (1997) join the renamed AFL, club football assumed more importance.
Coaches in particular were reluctant to release their star players, fearing long-term injuries would derail their premiership aspirations. Interest, too, among fans waned for these same reasons.
But there is now a whole generation of footballers never having had the opportunity for rep football. A proposal by the AFLPA for an All-Star match next year and the recent poll suggests the concept could make its return in one form or another.
AboriginalFootball@westnet.com.au
Last Modified on 13/06/2012 13:34