ALISDAIR WILLIAM-CHARLES | Rugby
Everyone, after me:
“Workin’ hard to make a living
Bringin’ shelter from the rain
A father’s son left to carry on
Blue denim in his veins…“
Jimmy knew.
He wasn’t singing about me exactly. I’ve never been much for manual labour, let alone Labor! But James Dixon Barnes, or Jimmy as we, the people call him, captured something of what it is to be from this land. Something real. Something downright impressive for an immigrant. Something that State of Origin, of all things, still manages to tap into.
Now, I’m a rugby man. Was raised on the Reds. Lived through Campo. Loved with All The Maqueen’s Men and laughed through the Cheika era. I know the difference between a pillar and a post, and I’ve been emotionally wounded by a crooked lineout throw more times than I care to admit. At every collapsed scrum, I wince hard enough to suck my cackleberries up in their mysterious slot, deep into the ghouls of my guts!
But this week, Origin is on. The decider.
And, record scratch, I’ll be watching.
Because even for us rusted-on [rugby] union types, there’s something magnetic about this strange, homoerotic, violent pageant in glorified Peter Alexander pyjamas.
For those of you from the rugby side of the tracks, here’s what you need to know about this annual riot in three gruesome acts.
The series is historic. Sort of.
Much like the Lions tour carries a century of tradition and pomp, the Origin series is heavy with its own fabled mythology. Hmm, I here you say? Well, albeit one stitched together from betting ads and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
It kicked off in 1980, when a few of us so-called “mouth-breathing Queenslanders” got sick of away losing in Sydney and decided to invent the concept of state-based vengeance. Since then, it’s become the most-watched, most-screamed-about domestic sporting contest in the country. What ho! To the (roll the ‘r’ with me, boys!) chagrin of the Victorian leg tennis grand final!
There are no kilts, no anthems in parseltongue, no silly songs like Jerusalem. Just 34 wombat-necked savages who’d rather take a head knock than miss a tackle. The fans where cheap polyester wigs in either blue or maroon. You’d be left with a flesh-coloured swimcap on permanently if you got too close to a naked flame in one of those! Bonjour, smoothskin!
And, somehow, it still feels sacred.
Where do the players come from?
Queensland and New South Wales. Fiji and New Zealand. Cook Islands. Other charming island nations in the Pacific that forever have their hand out for the some AusAid! Cha-ching! And that’s about it. And only if you played your first senior game of league there. You can be from Sydney via Calcutta and play your first senior game in Coolangatta and you’re a Maroon, boy!
It’s a bit like the Lions in that you’ve got two distinct cultures, two proud traditions, and two types of haircut. NSW are sleek, flashy, and shampooed. Queensland are tough, scrappy but full of panache. See the great Carl Webb’s famous ‘Q’ style for reference.
There’s no need to invent eligibility rules or mine for heritage. No one’s playing for Malta or Jamaica or Perth. It’s just men from Logan and Penrith trying to legally maim each other for nothing besides bragging rights and the pride of your state.
How many people care? Too many to ignore.
This is not one of those mid-season Tests in Tokyo (that we often lose) where half the squad’s off playing their mortgage off in Europe. This is prime-time, high-octane sports entertainment. Like wrestling but real.
More people watch Origin than any other football match in Australia. Including, shock horror, Wallabies Tests. Stadiums sell out. Pub TVs are hijacked nationwide by east coast ex-pats.
It’s tribal. It’s intense. It’s probably illegal in parts of Melbourne.
And yet, when it’s on, the whole country seems to stop and watch. So yeah, Tarquin and Roden, people do care!
What’s the actual football like?
If rugby is chess with bruises, Origin is bare-knuckle boxing in a phone booth. In the nude.
There are no lineouts. No rucks. No mauls. No scrums worth speaking of. No order, all gas and no brakes. Just hit-ups, cut-out passes, and tackles that rival a car crash.
And yet, it works. There’s grace and humilty in the carnage. Tension, in every set. Momentum swings like a ram’s scrotum. And the result is often in the balance right up until the final siren.
It’s the kind of sport where you hold your breath without meaning to.
Who are the players to watch?
For New South Wales, Nathan Cleary is the keystone. Sharp, clean-cut, suspiciously good hairline and unnervingly calm. When fit, he controls games like Larkham from the block. Around him are a cast of human choo choo trains. Payne Haas, Brian To’o and the baddest mofo east of South Dowlin’, James ‘Teddy’ Tedesco.
Queensland counters with the unbreakable Cameron Munster. All instinct, menace and fuck you. He tackles like he’s throwing a chubby Churchie boy in the river after a cheeky comment at Fridays. Akubra and all. Then there’s Reece Walsh, who runs like a startled deer and fights like a man who’s never lost one.
And at the heart of it all is that unmistakable air of quiet confidence. These are not men in it for the pageantry. They are here to win. Whatever it costs.
So, what does it all mean?
It means pride. It means pain. It means watching something that feels deeply Australian, in the purest, roughest sense.
For us union diehards, it’s not home. But it’s close.
And for three nights a year, we cross the floor.
So yes, I’ll be watching Game III.
From my recliner in Betoota Grove, Wallabies polo on, wife on mute, beer in hand. Pretending not to care. Cheering anyway.
Because Origin isn’t the greatest rugby show on grass.
But it might be the loudest.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
Alisdair William-Charles is a retired economist and former rugby union centre who played for Grove in Betoota and earned three caps for the Queensland Reds before a freak accident in 1988 ended his career. Jason Little’s right boot kicked his thumb off in a charge-down gone awry and it’s whereabouts are still the subject of sideline folklore involving a dachshund. A proud alumnus of Whooton in Betoota Grove and a UQ graduate in economics with a major in agriculture, Alisdair went on to work for 30 years at the Betoota branch of Rabobank. He now writes freelance for The Scrum on ESPN, The Sydney Morning Private School And Naughty Hospo Newsletter, and Be-Toot-Balls, the quarterly sporting lift-out of The Betoota Advocate.
