Aboriginal & TSI Eddie Maguires belief on how State of Origin is going to work would be a disaster.

[Peacock]

SA and WA should try it for a few pre-seasons, it would probably get a good following alternating venues each year. Having only two teams means you could get a bit of a rivalry going.

In VIC you could only play SOO once maybe every ten years, boring.

 

[WesternSydneyHawk]

Here's a model that could potentially work:

A five round competition.

In round one, there's three qualifying games:

NT Vs Tasmania

NSW/ACT Vs Queensland

Vic Metro Vs Vic Country

In rounds two through four, each of these teams plays each of the other teams:

SA
WA
(Qld or NSW/ACT)
(NT or Tas)

In the final, it's the best Vic side from round one, vs the best team from rounds two to four.

 

[The 747]

Hey everyone look at me I'm Eddie Maguire and I used to be important.

 

[The Educator]

NSW/ACT would be far more competitive with SA than SA would be with Vic.
Excluding NSW and QLD from the top group
Splitting out the indiginous players hurts WA and SA far more than Vic which is already stacked
Indigenous all stars would be less competitive than NSW anyway

Vic
WA
SA
NSW/ACT
Queensland /NT
Tas / International (born and maybe both parents born in another country)

Allow players to play if they have spent 7 years continuously living in that state which could further balance

 

[GC2015]

In VIC you could only play SOO once maybe every ten years, boring.

I reckon a Victorian SoO team is currently the equivalent of the USA Dream Team in Olympic basketball in terms of the perceived gap in player ability of the best 22 for each state. The Vics should always win, even if some stars are rested, but nothing will motivate them more than the prospect/reality of losing and being embarrassed on the national stage, just like the Americans were on the international stage.

Go back to 2004 & 2006 when the US was embarrassed at both the Athens Olympics and the Tokyo World Cup by not even qualifying for the gold medal game. That was the birth of the 2008 Redeem Team and ALL the biggest stars from the United States played in the Beijing Olympics (barring injuries of course). Kobe, Lebron, Wade, Melo, Bosh, Paul, Howard etc. They were all there and all were incredibly motivated to make a statement by bringing the gold home.

What would be great is if the AFL could somehow manufacture a way for Victoria to lose its first SoO game when/if this competition returns. That would disapate their complacency and should mean they take it very seriously like the US did at the 2008 Olympics. An away trip to Adelaide or Perth might do the trick.

 

[Walshawk]

Original has to be the best of the best. You can’t have teams that are of a lower standard than an average AFL team. Tas, Queensland, NT, NSW and possibly SA fall into this category.

SA v Vic one year, WA v Vic the next.

 

[Tasmanian saint]

State of Origin is gone.

Im not sure why we are even considering bringing it back.

If any player got seriously injured playing in it, the league would implode.

Move on.

I suppose it’s probably the only thing that the NRL has over us they make a lot of money from there origin series no doubt the afl wants a slice of the pie !

 

[GC2015]

I suppose it’s probably the only thing that the NRL has over us they make a lot of money from there origin series no doubt the afl wants a slice of the pie !

State of Origin is certainly the showpiece event for the NRL (bigger than their GF) and a big part of the reason they get lots of money from the broadcasters because it's not just one marquee game, it's three every year. I think the AFL is constantly looking for ways to create marquee games (Good Friday is a recent example) and they seemed genuinely surprised when the Indigenous All Stars game was able to pull a crowd of 38k. It would appear that opened their eyes to what's potentially possible with rep footy, if you get it right.

At this point I think the concept of State of Origin in the AFL should be moved into the trial phase as there was enough evidence from the Indigenous All Stars game to suggest there is genuine intethere rest in rep footy (if you do it right) and it's worth giving it another go. I know people say the biggest stars won't play, but look at what happened after a 12 year hiatus at the Bushfire Appeal SoO game back in 2020. The biggest stars were all there - Dusty, Danger, Neale, Cripps, Fyfe, Bont etc.

Just don't do it every year. That's the only thing that would guarantee failure. Every second or third year will work.

 

[Cmarsh]

Original has to be the best of the best. You can’t have teams that are of a lower standard than an average AFL team. Tas, Queensland, NT, NSW and possibly SA fall into this category.

SA v Vic one year, WA v Vic the next.

So SA falls into the less than an average AFL team standard in your opinion, but you would still have SA v VIC first up?

 

[Cookie]

Such a boring and tired excuse, Gulden just got injured in a pre season game and Hogan broke his thumb closing a door. Injuries happen, if a player gets injured representing his state the league would survive lol.

Essendon wouldn't have a player good enough to get in the team.

 

[Cmarsh]

Allow players to play if they have spent 7 years continuously living in that state which could further balance

Now that rule would make things really interesting. Having Toby Greene and Josh Kelly in the NSW side would make a big difference.

 

[Walshawk]

So SA falls into the less than an average AFL team standard in your opinion, but you would still have SA v VIC first up?

I said possibly. It is the match up that most people identify with SOO. But equally happy with WA v Vic. Vic being the away teams evens things up a little.

 

[GC2015]

I said possibly. It is the match up that most people identify with SOO. But equally happy with WA v Vic. Vic being the away teams evens things up a little.

No matter which state ends up playing Big V, the first game absolutely has to be played outside of Victoria to give it the best possible chance of being a competitive game. If WA or SA could pull off the upset against Victoria in that first game then it would really set it up nicely to be a successful venture back into SoO for the AFL and create an incentive that may not have existed beforehand for the best Victorian players in the league.

 

[WesternSydneyHawk]

Are there opportunities for other all-star game formats that aren't state based?

Especially heading into the mid-season draft or the end-of-season draft and trade period?

For example, could we have a game ahead of the MSD.

One team has the 22 best players who were delisted at the end of last year's AFL season.

The other team has the best 22 VFL/SANFL/WAFL players that aren't currently on an AFL list.

The idea is that some kid from Claremont or Sturt, or maybe someone who was dropped by an AFL club at the end if last year, kicks half a dozen goals and wins their chance (or second chance) at an AFL career.

Or perhaps ahead of the draft and trade period, we could have the best 22 draft eligible under 18s against the best 22 from the state leagues.

Or, near the start of the season, we could do an all-star game consisting of two teams of players that are eligible for free agency this year.

 

[Walshawk]

Are there opportunities for other all-star game formats that aren't state based?

Especially heading into the mid-season draft or the end-of-season draft and trade period?

For example, could we have a game ahead of the MSD.

One team has the 22 best players who were delisted at the end of last year's AFL season.

The other team has the best 22 VFL/SANFL/WAFL players that aren't currently on an AFL list.

The idea is that some kid from Claremont or Sturt, or maybe someone who was dropped by an AFL club at the end if last year, kicks half a dozen goals and wins their chance (or second chance) at an AFL career.

Or perhaps ahead of the draft and trade period, we could have the best 22 draft eligible under 18s against the best 22 from the state leagues.

Or, near the start of the season, we could do an all-star game consisting of two teams of players that are eligible for free agency this year.

Not required. There is already state league each week, where half the players are already on AFL lists. There is already a Vic v SANFL state match and there is already a futures match with top draft prospects.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

State of Origin is dead. Has been for years and there's no bringing it back. Clubs are investing too much time, effort and money into development of their players and the last thing they need is season ending injuries to star players in a Mickey Mouse S of O game.

 

[JimmyBC]

State of Origin is a dead donkey and we should leave it that way I couldn't give two shits about an SA state team.

 

[banzai]

State of Origin is dead. Has been for years and there's no bringing it back. Clubs are investing too much time, effort and money into development of their players and the last thing they need is season ending injuries to star players in a Mickey Mouse S of O game.

This exactly.

If they try it in the preseason, at least it will be done once, be embarrassing and then never be talked about again.

Like it or not, it will be compared to the NRL state of origin now. So for it to work, it really needs to be the highest standard game of the year played at the highest speed with brutal hits, injuries and suspensions coming out of it. If that happened, it could succeed as it will show the game meant something. But it's obviously not going to be that.

 

[Cmarsh]

State of Origin is dead. Has been for years and there's no bringing it back. Clubs are investing too much time, effort and money into development of their players and the last thing they need is season ending injuries to star players in a Mickey Mouse S of O game.

State of Origin is a dead donkey and we should leave it that way I couldn't give two shits about an SA state team.

This exactly.

If they try it in the preseason, at least it will be done once, be embarrassing and then never be talked about again.

Like it or not, it will be compared to the NRL state of origin now. So for it to work, it really needs to be the highest standard game of the year played at the highest speed with brutal hits, injuries and suspensions coming out of it. If that happened, it could succeed as it will show the game meant something. But it's obviously not going to be that.

I get it, but I think the AFL will be searching for ways to increase revenue and ratings. That's why I think they may force SoO to happen, even though the clubs may not be keen to risk their players.