State of Origin can work again for the AFL. Here’s how

There is not much the AFL doesn’t have over the other major football codes in Australia. The competition is in rude health. Crowds and memberships are as big as they’ve ever been, a 19th team is coming in to further broaden its already enviable national spread, and long-term media deals with Seven and Fox will ensure that none of these things will change at any foreseeable point in the future. Plus, the on-field product is excellent, save for a few umpire-related gripes. But when don’t we have those?

The game does have one glaring weakness, and always has: the absence of any form of representative football. It’s just the AFL. That’s it, no higher honours available, aside from a blazer for a team that doesn’t ever actually play - and when they do, once in a blue moon, it’s with a round ball against the Irish. Your personal perspective will dictate whether you think this is a big problem, a little problem, or no problem at all.

Tony Lockett and Dermott Brereton (having swapped guernseys with an opponent) after the win over South Australia in 1989.

Whether the AFL should bring back State of Origin is one of those annual talking points you can almost set your watch to. Every year, when the NRL’s version takes over the mindspace of Australia’s entire eastern seaboard, the topic gets raised, and usually dismissed pretty quickly. Some groan at the mere thought of it.

But as an expat South Australian, who has very fond childhood memories of attending matches in the AFL’s last serious incarnation of State of Origin, it was pleasing - and most unexpected - to hear Andrew Dillon put the topic back on the agenda in an interview with this masthead on Thursday, in what appeared to be a semi-serious way. Any realistic hope for it had been lost across the footy landscape, but now, suddenly, hope springs eternal again.

There is appetite for some form of representative action from players, some coaches, a good amount of fans, and now the bloke who’s in charge. But the question is: how? What format could satisfy those concerned about the risk of injury and ensure a compelling spectacle? And how to deal with the matter of, unlike rugby league, there being three strong ‘traditional’ states who would expect to wear their own colours, and not come together under some All-Stars abomination which nobody would care about?

Not to mention two ‘frontier’ states for whom a return to the Allies concept would not align with the AFL’s stated ambition of turning them into bona fide footy markets, and not some add-on to what the game already has. And then there’s the small matter of what to do with Tasmania, considering they’ll soon have their own club called ‘Tasmania’ running around in their actual State of Origin guernsey. That’s not an easy square to circle.

Dusty Martin celebrates a goal for Victoria in the 2020 Bushfire Relief match.

I don’t have all the answers, but I do remember how cool it was to feel pride in my home state and be able to share that with Adelaide Crows fans on a semi-regular basis, and cheer on South Australian players who had been drafted interstate as if they were on my team - because, for that night, they were. And I do think there’s a way to do it that would contribute to Australian rules football overall, something extra the game could tout to broadcasters, sponsors and state governments.

Make State of Origin like the AFL’s version of the World Cup, or the old interstate carnivals of a bygone era. Have it every four years, and ask states to bid for the opportunity to host it, just like Gather Round - and use that money to placate clubs anxious about the possibility of injuries to their players by showing there’s something in it for their bottom lines. Let every state have their own team, and use it as a mechanism to help grow the sport in markets where assistance is needed.

Make it a quadrennial celebration of the game’s history, a different kind of footy festival where people and players who are enemies on a weekly basis can come together as one.

For all those who say it can’t work because rugby league culture is different and State of Origin is actually considered the pinnacle of that game, not the club competition, I say this: there is pretty much nothing the AFL couldn’t make work if they wanted it to.

It might not ever reach the same heights as the NRL’s version, but if the AFL did it properly, and the industry got behind it, a revived Origin would be a more than worthy addition to the calendar.