Flogging a dead cash cow

So Queensland won the State of Origin again. Hmmm. Sorry for the typo. To 'win' it suggests they'd ever lost it, or were ever in danger of being in a position to lose it. No. Not against the weakest generation of NSW players since the Origin concept was first synthesized, thirty-some years ago. Still, the rather dubious win for NSW in Game 2 should confect just about interest in the old and tired Origin format to keep it limping along for another few years, so the owners and connections will continue to coin it in, the banana-bending banjoists get something to twang about again next year, and everyone's a winner.


Particularly the New Zealand Rugby League.

I hate to draw the attention of the Republic of Quoinslaaaand to things which involve dirty un-Australian foreign types from overseas - let's be honest, they're not great with foreigners, unless they fly into the Goldie on Deathstar and take photos of their koalas or invest in their property developments - but in the past six years of Maroon Origin dominance, the same six years since NSW's Generation Y-The-Fuck-Have-You-Been-Selected took centre stage in the sky blue, New Zealand have started routinely beating the sorry fuck out of Australia at international level. After never having beaten Australia in any form of significant tournament in the history of geological time, the Kiwis are now the reigning World and Four Nations Champions. Let's not pretend about this. They didn't get better. Australia got worse. Australia's playing squad became infested with Origin-sated Queenslanders, (in)bred from the cradle to consider their state colours more important than their national ones. Like Texas without the Mexicans. (A situation both Texas and Queensland would probably prefer.)

The end result typically looks something like this.


Now, Your Correspondent is the last bastard to give the inept muppets of the NSWRL a free ride, but it's probably not fair to sheet entire blame their way for Australia's failures at international level as a result of their state producing a generation of desperately incompetent fools who couldn't play their way out of a wet sack of shite if Joey Johns had personally written the play-by-play instructions and had it tattooed up their arm, Todd Carney style. It IS fair, however, to blame the rugby league gods of the Democratic People's Republic of of Capricornia for not turning up in international footy because they can't be fucked. And it is definitely fair to pin Blessed Saint Darren Fucking Lockyer for presiding over more international failure in green and gold than any Australian captain since Ponting got the arse. Yeah, congratulations Queensland on six in a row. Yay for you. Meanwhile, New Zealand are World and Four Nations Champions. Reckon you might actually get around to doing something about that?

The Doctor is OUT.