Predict the 2026 State of Origin teams

[jonnobackpocket]

They will both be playing a preseason game anyway won't they? And wouldn't there be a chance they get injured in that? Just have SoO as their preseason game and they dont play an alternate preseason game.

When it gets compared to a pre season game, that’s about all you need to know. Does anyone actually give 2 shits about the result?

 

[Cmarsh]

When it gets compared to a pre season game, that’s about all you need to know. Does anyone actually give 2 shits about the result?

Its obviously better than a standard pre-season game because of the quality of the players involved. But if you are arguing I dont want my players injured, thats a bit silly as they will have risk of injury anyway during preseason, postseason or otherwise. And will rate alot higher and have a full house in Perth. So yeah, there will be more than two shits given.

 

[Demon13304]

If his club allows him and if he wants to play, would have thought Gawn would be first choice ruck for Victoria. At his age he might be thinking he has other priorities though.

Yep only at his age I'm thinking that he might give it off to someone like Xerri instead, I think this one really depends on Gawn himself.

Rumour is that Pickett gets picked as he has strong ties to WA. And I think Trent Rivers would get picked as well for WA but other than Gawn, I can't see any of our players getting picked for Victoria.
Right now to me even just the mock squads, Victoria looks like a team full of stars and better on Paper, but WA looks more like an actual football team there to play

But yeah, I want all those guys to be picked and I'm not going to lose my mind if one of them gets a 3/4 week injury or something, shit happens. Seriously with the announcement of this and seeing some supporters losing their mind over the fact that there's a possibility their favourite player MIGHT get injured - it made me realise how much we need to grow up as a supporterbase

 

[jonnobackpocket]

Yep only at his age I'm thinking that he might give it off to someone like Xerri instead, I think this one really depends on Gawn himself.

Rumour is that Pickett gets picked as he has strong ties to WA. And I think Trent Rivers would get picked as well for WA but other than Gawn, I can't see any of our players getting picked for Victoria.
Right now to me even just the mock squads, Victoria looks like a team full of stars and better on Paper, but WA looks more like an actual football team there to play

But yeah, I want all those guys to be picked and I'm not going to lose my mind if one of them gets a 3/4 week injury or something, shit happens. Seriously with the announcement of this and seeing some supporters losing their mind over the fact that there's a possibility their favourite player MIGHT get injured - it made me realise how much we need to grow up as a supporterbase

It’s a meaningless game, a preseason game you can manage the players who can go through the motions to get some fitness and maybe work on game plan for the up coming season. The players that get picked will be expected to be having a red hot crack- before the season starts. Imagine you lose Gawn to a knee, season done for the Dee’s before it starts, for what ? so Victoria can beat Western Australia. Who cares?

 

[Cmarsh]

It’s a meaningless game, a preseason game you can manage the players who can go through the motions to get some fitness and maybe work on game plan for the up coming season. The players that get picked will be expected to be having a red hot crack- before the season starts. Imagine you lose Gawn to a knee, season done for the Dee’s before it starts, for what ? so Victoria can beat Western Australia. Who cares?

Nah. You can do a knee to innocuous incidents. Many ACL's are like that. Gulden broke an ankle in a preseason game against Gold Coast at the start 2025 and missed most of the season.

 

[Demon13304]

It’s a meaningless game, a preseason game you can manage the players who can go through the motions to get some fitness and maybe work on game plan for the up coming season. The players that get picked will be expected to be having a red hot crack- before the season starts. Imagine you lose Gawn to a knee, season done for the Dee’s before it starts, for what ? so Victoria can beat Western Australia. Who cares?

Youve pretty much ignored what me and Cmarsh have been saying lol

Max Gawn could every well get injured at training, or a preseason game, or idk falling off his bike or jamming his fingers in a door like Jesse Hogan did. Shit happens, I'm not gonna blame anyone or anything if he gets injured in this game.
Plus the chances of an actual season ending injury is still low. Why do yo think that the 46 players running out there are all the suddenly extra fragile and all of them are just going to drop dead on field because they're playing an extra game (which is hardly an extra game in the first place)?

Also I care, and all my footy supporting mates are keen to see how this goes. It's a chance to see ropline rep footy, I'm very keen for this.

 

[Demon13304]

Nah. You can do a knee to innocuous incidents. Many ACL's are like that. Gulden broke an ankle in a preseason game against Gold Coast at the start 2025 and missed most of the season.

Callum Mills had a season ending injury wrestling with his mates. He also once did his ankle walking out of a cafe in Sydney once lol

Christian Salem had a flipping brick fall on his head at pre season training once

Rampe tripped over chain fence and broke his arm.

There's so many more instances of injuries happening that don't involve a single State of Origin match

Shit happens, it's such a lame excuse working against Origin.

 

[Sttew]

Chris Scott and Dean Cox announced as coaches.

AFL seemed to have adopted the NRL's branding of just calling it 'Origin'. Always thought that was a bit shit, why would we copy that.

NRL copied AFL when it introduced State of Origin

 

[Milanista28]

The best result for the future of SoO is WA winning this.

 

[Bjo187]

The best result for the future of SoO is WA winning this.

Agree I'll be quietly cheering on WA, for at the very least a competitive game, but you're right if they win (very unlikely) it would be great for the concept.

 

[Worm4]

Good chance Daicos doesn't play.
After being shepherded by Gary Lyon, all of a sudden a mysterious knee injury made headlines and he is on a modified program until 2026.

 

[Big Animal]

I certainly didn't predict WA would select as the coach a bloke that has done it for 1 year and took his team from 1st to 10th. Quite bizarre if you were thinking you would pick a coach on the usual qualities like experience, success. Chris Scott

Chris Scott

Age

49

Ht

182cm

Wt

89kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

16.6

4star

K

11.2

4star

HB

5.4

4star

M

5.1

5star

T

1.6

4star

G

0.4

3star

No current season stats available

D

13.2

4star

K

10.2

4star

HB

3.0

3star

M

2.2

3star

T

2.8

5star

G

0.4

3star

is going to tear him another new one (or make the current hole bigger?).

 

[kid_a]

I’m just praying no Lions players get picked, imagine losing McLuggage or Dunkley for the season for this irrelevant crap.

It's not irrelevant over here mate

 

[GC2015]

The best result for the future of SoO is WA winning this.

The AFL should be trying everything they can to give WA the best chance of winning this game (giving them home advantage is a great start) because that's what will really breathe life into this form of football. There's an assumption from most footy fans that Victoria would clearly have the strongest side if State of Origin returned and there's no point in even bothering with state games because it would be largely uncompetitive.

Is that actually true or is there more to it than just high profle names on paper? The real reason that the NRL's State of Origin competition became popular was because there was originally an assumption that the significantly larger New South Wales would dominate Queensland in state games... and then Queensland beat them. Many times. Queensland gleefully welcomes the underdog tag and seems to always put up a mighty effort, even in defeat. Queensland has won more games/series than New South Wales and that's what makes it interesting because NSW often has the stronger team on paper. That dynamic has built over many decades and you see full buy in from the fans/media because of it.

Assuming this game is played in a highly competitive fashion, how will Victorians react if they lose this match? I think you'll suddenly see far more buy in from the Vics because the previously uncrowned title of the strongest state in Australia has been taken and that won't sit well with any Victorian. So yeah, let's find a way to get WA to win this game and we should start cooking with state games again.

It's worth pointing out that the last time Victoria played WA in Perth (1991), the Big V lost by 76 points. Also, the last time they played South Australia in Adelaide when the best players weren't skipping state games (1994), the Vics also lost that game. So maybe the trick here is to put the Victorians on a plane because they seem to struggle when playing outside of Melbourne. My prediction is the Big V will play South Australia at Adelaide Oval in 2027.

 

[Bjo187]

The AFL should be trying everything they can to give WA the best chance of winning this game (giving them home advantage is a great start) because that's what will really breathe life into this form of football. There's an assumption from most footy fans that Victoria would clearly have the strongest side if State of Origin returned and there's no point in even bothering with state games because it would be largely uncompetitive.

Is that actually true or is there more to it than just high profle names on paper? The real reason that the NRL's State of Origin competition became popular was because there was originally an assumption that the significantly larger New South Wales would dominate Queensland in state games... and then Queensland beat them. Many times. Queensland gleefully welcomes the underdog tag and seems to always put up a mighty effort, even in defeat. Queensland has won more games/series than New South Wales and that's what makes it interesting because NSW often has the stronger team on paper. That dynamic has built over many decades and you see full buy in from the fans/media because of it.

Assuming this game is played in a highly competitive fashion, how will Victorians react if they lose this match? I think you'll suddenly see far more buy in from the Vics because the previously uncrowned title of the strongest state in Australia has been taken and that won't sit well with any Victorian. So yeah, let's find a way to get WA to win this game and we should start cooking with state games again.

It's worth pointing out that the last time Victoria played WA in Perth (1991), the Big V lost by 76 points. Also, the last time they played South Australia in Adelaide when the best players weren't skipping state games (1994), the Vics also lost that game. So maybe the trick here is to put the Victorians on a plane because they seem to struggle when playing outside of Melbourne. My prediction is the Big V will play South Australia at Adelaide Oval in 2027.

Yeah I think the games in Victoria is what killed the concept. So I'd be advocating for all state games the Vic's play in to be interstate, the crowd is more passionate there too.

 

[jonnobackpocket]

Youve pretty much ignored what me and Cmarsh have been saying lol

Max Gawn could every well get injured at training, or a preseason game, or idk falling off his bike or jamming his fingers in a door like Jesse Hogan did. Shit happens, I'm not gonna blame anyone or anything if he gets injured in this game.
Plus the chances of an actual season ending injury is still low. Why do yo think that the 46 players running out there are all the suddenly extra fragile and all of them are just going to drop dead on field because they're playing an extra game (which is hardly an extra game in the first place)?

Also I care, and all my footy supporting mates are keen to see how this goes. It's a chance to see ropline rep footy, I'm very keen for this.

Don’t know if I ignored you, I read it, I just disagree. That’s OK I might be in the minority.

 

[GC2015]

Yeah I think the games in Victoria is what killed the concept. So I'd be advocating for all state games the Vic's play in to be interstate, the crowd is more passionate there too.

Ideally, we would have WA and/or SA beat Victoria over the next two years so we see some genuine investment in state games from Victorians due to their uncomfirmed status as the best state team in the country being challenged. The best case scenario is WA beat Victoria in Perth in 2026 and SA beat Victoria in Adelaide in 2027. That should be enough to create an appetite for Victoria to host a game (because they can't win on the road) in 2028 and have a good crowd show up. That coincides with Tasmania entering the AFL and it's probably a good time to look into introducing the non-traditional states into a State of Origin competition/weekend. For example, 2028 could see VIC play WA at the MCG, QLD play NSW at the Gabba/SCG and TAS play the NT in Hobart. SA would have the year off and come back in 2029 if everything runs smoothly, but the main thing here is to not over expose state football in Victoria because that's what killed it in the past.

Anyway, we just need Victoria to lose to another state and suddenly people will change the way they view SoO. Hopefully WA get it done in February! I get the feeling Crippa really wants to win this upcoming game and has said many times that he's a proud WA boy who has been dreaming about this for a long time.

 

[kid_a]

Ideally, we would have WA and/or SA beat Victoria over the next two years so we see some genuine investment in state games from Victorians due to their uncomfirmed status as the best state team in the country being challenged. The best case scenario is WA beat Victoria in Perth in 2026 and SA beat Victoria in Adelaide in 2027. That should be enough to create an appetite for Victoria to host a game (because they can't win on the road) in 2028 and have a good crowd show up. That coincides with Tasmania entering the AFL and it's probably a good time to look into introducing the non-traditional states into a State of Origin competition/weekend. For example, 2028 could see VIC play WA at the MCG, QLD play NSW at the Gabba/SCG and TAS play the NT in Hobart. SA would have the year off and come back in 2029 if everything runs smoothly, but the main thing here is to not over expose state football in Victoria because that's what killed it in the past.

Anyway, we just need Victoria to lose to another state and suddenly people will change the way they view SoO. Hopefully WA get it done in February! I get the feeling Crippa really wants to win this upcoming game and has said many times that he's a proud WA boy who has been dreaming about this for a long time.

Having WA and SA win would also build up anticipation for a match between the two as well

 

[GC2015]

Having WA and SA win would also build up anticipation for a match between the two as well

Good point! Under that cirumstance, you may actually have WA v SA in 2028 to crown the official national champion of Australia and the Vics may be forced to wait another year to play or come up against one of the non-traditional footy states in a consolation game. Imagine the level of frustration amongst Victorian footy fans if they're forced to watch WA and SA play off for the national championship. The saltiness would be through the roof and there would be massive determination from the Vics to turn that around in the following years.

It'd be good if we had cycles of competitions running every 3-4 years that culminates in in a championship game to crown the champion of Australia. I think you'd see more investment from players, media and fans if you did that because a win in one year only builds into the following year in pursuit of the national championship i.e. if WA win next year then there's going to be a lot more investment from the WA public in 2027/28 if a national championship is up for grabs.

This is really the benefit we have over the NRL when it comes to State of Origin. We can genuinely run a national State of Origin competition to crown a champion of Australia, whereas the NRL are restricted to QLD v NSW every year because no other state is even close to the standard of the top two RL states.

With all the recent high end AFL talent we're seeing come through QLD and NSW, we could legitimately get to a point in 3-5 years where we have as many as 5 states that could all genuinely be competing for the national title and you hope Tassie comes along for the ride as well once their AFL team is established and their academy program presumably starts pumping out high end draft picks.

 

[Bjo187]

Ideally, we would have WA and/or SA beat Victoria over the next two years so we see some genuine investment in state games from Victorians due to their uncomfirmed status as the best state team in the country being challenged. The best case scenario is WA beat Victoria in Perth in 2026 and SA beat Victoria in Adelaide in 2027. That should be enough to create an appetite for Victoria to host a game (because they can't win on the road) in 2028 and have a good crowd show up. That coincides with Tasmania entering the AFL and it's probably a good time to look into introducing the non-traditional states into a State of Origin competition/weekend. For example, 2028 could see VIC play WA at the MCG, QLD play NSW at the Gabba/SCG and TAS play the NT in Hobart. SA would have the year off and come back in 2029 if everything runs smoothly, but the main thing here is to not over expose state football in Victoria because that's what killed it in the past.

Anyway, we just need Victoria to lose to another state and suddenly people will change the way they view SoO. Hopefully WA get it done in February! I get the feeling Crippa really wants to win this upcoming game and has said many times that he's a proud WA boy who has been dreaming about this for a long time.

Two issues here though, you've got Victoria playing every year which most star players won't wanna do coz the novelty will wear off, plus I honestly think a game in Melbourne would be an absolute bloodbath and kill off the concept in one year. I went to the last state of origin game in 95 at the MCG, it was depressing to be there.

 

[Cmarsh]

Good point! Under that cirumstance, you may actually have WA v SA in 2028 to crown the official national champion of Australia and the Vics may be forced to wait another year to play or come up against one of the non-traditional footy states in a consolation game. Imagine the level of frustration amongst Victorian footy fans if they're forced to watch WA and SA play off for the national championship. The saltiness would be through the roof and there would be massive determination from the Vics to turn that around in the following years.

It'd be good if we had cycles of competitions running every 3-4 years that culminates in in a championship game to crown the champion of Australia. I think you'd see more investment from players, media and fans if you did that because a win in one year only builds into the following year in pursuit of the national championship i.e. if WA win next year then there's going to be a lot more investment from the WA public in 2027/28 if a national championship is up for grabs.

This is really the benefit we have over the NRL when it comes to State of Origin. We can genuinely run a national State of Origin competition to crown a champion of Australia, whereas the NRL are restricted to QLD v NSW every year because no other state is even close to the standard of the top two RL states.

With all the recent high end AFL talent we're seeing come through QLD and NSW, we could legitimately get to a point in 3-5 years where we have as many as 5 states that could all genuinely be competing for the national title and you hope Tassie comes along for the ride as well once their AFL team is established and their academy program presumably starts pumping out high end draft picks.

Doubt it would ever get to the point of a national championship. The extent of the AFL's interest will be which government will be willing to pay to host a staging of a given matchup.

 

[GC2015]

Two issues here though, you've got Victoria playing every year which most star players won't wanna do coz the novelty will wear off, plus I honestly think a game in Melbourne would be an absolute bloodbath and kill off the concept in one year. I went to the last state of origin game in 95 at the MCG, it was depressing to be there.

I think it's highly dependent on who wins in February. I'm pretty sure the WA public will pack out Perth Stadium + it'll draw a good TV rating regardless (because of the players that have committed to playing) and I suspect that will be enough for the SA government to bid on Origin hosting rights in 2027. However, I think the South Aussies will want to face the winner of this game in February because that's essentially the championship game to crown a national champion, even if they don't officially market it that way.

Doubt it would ever get to the point of a national championship. The extent of the AFL's interest will be which government will be willing to pay to host a staging of a given matchup.

I think that's how it will start, but the future will be determined by how competitive these early games are IMO (i.e. can we find a way for Victoria to lose). If Victoria just smashes both WA and SA then the concept is going to die quickly. However, if one or both of those states can beat the Vics then there's potential for a national championship to be established.

As a Queenslander, I'd love to see our state team get the opportunity to potentially win its way through to a national championship game. It's got a bit of an FA Cup feel to it where any state could theoretically go deep/win it if they get on a run and I think that'd be a great addition to the AFL calendar each year.

 

[Farang83150]

I certainly didn't predict WA would select as the coach a bloke that has done it for 1 year and took his team from 1st to 10th. Quite bizarre if you were thinking you would pick a coach on the usual qualities like experience, success. Chris Scott is going to tear him another new one (or make the current hole bigger?).

Who would you have chosen?