The Early Daze
New South Wales v Queensland: 1908-1981

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

The faded memories of inter-state clashes before the dawn of State of Origin are barely spoken of today.

It’s no secret that Queensland endured tough experiences in the pre-Origin era, but it wasn’t entirely 75 winters of doom and gloom – there were many times when the Blues were far from being the king-pins of state football supremacy.

It was tough going in the early days for the Queenslanders. Without the vast population advantage that NSW enjoyed for footballers, fans and gate-money, rugby league in Brisbane and the state’s major towns took longer to find favour with the public and footballers.

Despite not yet having a Brisbane club competition, the first Maroon-thirteen was cobbled together in 1908 from former rugby union players.

After matches against the touring Kiwis and Maori team, the Queenslanders journeyed to Sydney in July, losing the opening game to NSW 43-0.

The following winter, as if the Blues weren’t already strong enough, were boosted by the great stampede of Wallabies from union to league.

In 1911 Dally Messenger notched up 32 points in a 65-9 belting of Queensland. In 1915, the new idol of the Sydney public, Harold Horder, amassed 60 points in two inter-state matches.

In the wake of the Horder-led blitz, the overall tally read as: NSW 14 wins, QLD 0 wins.

The defeats, even though sometimes severe, far from disuaded the resilient Queenslanders. QRL officials openly stated that “We know we are not champions,” but felt that their only hope of raising the team’s standard was by playing against “such fine exponents as the New South Welshmen.”

After a brief cessation of matches during World War One, inter-state contest resumed on “Peace Day” in July 1919. Held at the SCG, more than 30,000 Sydneysiders cheered the novel sight of a dark blue kitted NSW team against the red, white and blue jerseyed Queenslanders; the straying from traditional maroon and sky blue caused by war-time material shortages.

The dogged determination of the code’s Queensland pioneers in the early days began to turn in their favour immediately after the War. During the 1919 season towns and their football clubs “holus bolus” across the state began forsaking rugby union. Toowoomba and Ipswich, in particular, quickly became powerful centres of the 13-man game.

The QRU rapidly fell into financial ruin and collapsed. Without a controlling body, rugby union went into extinction in the northern state. The winter of 1920 began with the QRL in the rarified position of having no rival rugby code to contend with.

Suddenly, a new era in inter-state football dawned. In 1921 the Maroons ran over NSW 25-9 at the Sydney Sports Ground. The Queenslanders had accumulated a cluster of outstanding players including future Kangaroo captain Tommy Gorman, as well as Eric Frauenfelder, E. ‘Nigger’ Brown, Cyril Aynsley, Cec Broadfoot and Norm Potter. They were further strengthened when the outstanding half-back Duncan Thompson returned to Queensland after leaving North Sydney.

Through the 1920s it seemed to one and all in NSW that Maroon-clad giants were roaming our football fields; Queensland enjoyed unprecedented dominance through the decade, winning 17 of the 24 games played from 1922 to 1928.

In 1927, the two Sydney matches were witnessed by a combined crowd of over 100,000 people at the SCG. The Referee, the nation’s pre-eminent sports newspaper, acclaimed the contests for state supremacy as “a series that has developed into the most interesting and best annual matches contested in Australia.”

As can sometimes happen in the moments of greatest sporting triumph, administrators take their eyes off the ball. Amidst the QRL embroiled in a bitter fight for control and power with the Brisbane Rugby League and its clubs, the QRU was re-born.

Enough clubs and footballers in Queensland returned to the amateur code that by the mid-1930s the Maroons junior development and overall competitiveness were again being questioned.

Over the following decades, Queensland enjoyed only sporadic moments of triumph over NSW.

Loss of players to Sydney began to become an issue, with Harry Bath, a Brisbane Souths product who played for the Maroons in 1945, one of the increasing number “going south.”

In 1959 a Noel Kelly inspired Queensland team won the inter-state series 3-1, but within a season he too was plying his footballing skills with the Wests Magpies and NSW.

The crux of the issue was Sydney’s Leagues Clubs, and the rich poker machine revenue that they were generating for their associated football clubs.

Bereft of their best men – and often facing former Queenslanders wearing NSW blue jerseys - through the 1960s and ‘70s Queensland were unable to defeat NSW in a series. From 1962 to 1981 the Maroons won just four games.

In 1966, Ken Thornett (a 1963 Kangaroo tourist) became one of the first to publicly push for Origin style matches.

Thornett wrote in his book, Tackling Rugby, that, “Annual inter-state fixtures are suffering a slow death.” Thornett was convinced that if no action was taken “Queensland's role will be merely secondary.”

“Inter-state matches could be revitalised by allowing former Queenslanders to play for their state. The present imbalance of playing strength between the two states is an embarrassment all round.”

Thornett argued that if the Sydney based players were mixed “together with the best of the current crop of Queenslanders, they would make NSW battle every inch of the way. If our administrators intend to persist with inter-state fixtures then it would be only fair to all concerned that transferred Queenslanders be declared eligible to play for their home state.”

Thornett's prediction of Queensland's decline had become reality by the late 1970s. In 1977 the NSWRL refused to host any inter-state matches, and the following season consigned the contest to suburban Leichhardt Oval.

After 96 points were racked up against Queensland in the three-match 1979 series, the movement towards an Origin game gained serious momentum.

Following the Maroons loss in tthe first two games of the 1980 series, the QRL's Ron McAuliffe convinced ARL Chairman Kevin Humphreys to give Origin a trial in the "dead rubber."

The Origin concept was heavily criticised by the Sydney media and many club officials, with suggestions that clubs would refuse to release their Queensland players. Humphreys stepped into the fray, declaring that the match was a genuine selection trial for Test jumpers, and the selected NSW-based Queenslanders had to be free to play.

The Queenslanders were undoubtedly pleased, but even McAuliffe could not foresee just how much of a phenomena State of Origin would be.