Tomorrow night, for the fourth time in history and the first time since 1997, State of Origin rugby league will thunder out upon the sacred grass of the MCG. But why, many denizens of the southern citadel will be asking, should we care?
In Melbourne, most people regard rugby league as less a sport than a security blanket, something to cling to when they really need reassurance that they’re better than Sydney. Their game is dull, thuggish and one-dimensional, while ours is elegant, multi-faceted and spectacular: so goes the Victorian mythos drummed into every child south of the Murray from birth. So why should they care?
Well, let’s look at that whole “sporting capital of the world” thing.
Melburnians like to use this phrase almost as much as “most liveable city”, and with the same sense of odd confidence, as if these are actual official titles that the rest of the world handed to Melbourne, in awe of its magnificence. Yes, Melbourne is a sport-mad city. But if you really want to earn the tag of “sporting capital”, you better have more strings to your bow than one football competition and the Spring Dumb Hats and Gambling Carnival.
No, to be the capital you need more, and a good start would be the warm embrace of the series that arouses more extreme emotions in its followers than the miracle of childbirth and same-sex marriage combined.
State of Origin has a power to render the most sensible among us incapable of rational thought. It possesses a violent beauty that makes one simultaneously shudder and rhapsodise – a concerto played on bone and muscle and heart.
And like all the greatest sporting events, it is a theatre of raw hatred. Not hatred as you Victorians think you know it – this is not the petty dislike of Collingwood v Carlton, this is a deep-down, bestial, idiotic hatred, where players you adore every other day of the year become your worst enemy for two hours.
I cheer on the stars of my team, the Melbourne Storm, every week: but when Origin comes around Smith, Cronk and Slater are the worst kind of morally bankrupt pond scum, and I would give anything to see their hopes and dreams destroyed. That’s the essence of Origin, and it’s a passion that anyone who calls themselves a sports fan should be willing to jump on board with.
I know it might be intimidating to give yourself to the alien code, but it can also bring much joy. I discovered this when I migrated south in 1999 and rapidly became a fanatical AFL devotee. And the beauty of league is it’s such a simple game to learn – all you need to know is that you can’t pass the ball forward, a try isn’t just an attempt, and that Ray Warren is completely raving bonkers out of his mind.
And that you should support NSW.
This is very important: Victorians may feel the solidarity of the downtrodden with Queensland against the arrogant Sydneysiders; but in rugby league, believe me, Queensland is very much the Evil Empire. It is they, the tyrannical maroon hordes, who have been trampling over the hapless blue serfs for many years, and it is the plucky outgunned New South Welshmen who take the field as perennial underdogs.
So it’s very important that tomorrow night at the ‘G, we all roar our throats out for our brothers in blue, lest the northern despots have their egos further inflated.
And for those already of the league faith, who fear that placing the game’s showcase in enemy territory sullies the sport? Relax: when you have something this beautiful, you should share it with as many people as possible.
This game is an opportunity to bring Australians of all backgrounds together, to be not divided by our differences, but united by our commonalities. Because when it comes down to it, whether you were raised on Aussie rules, or rugby league, or some other weird thing, we all share the basic human trait of loving the sight of huge men crashing into each other at high speed.
And State of Origin is the greatest expression of that truth the world has ever seen.
