Mortality and Origin's elephant in the room
SOAK up State of Origin’s great stories while you can.
For while I’m not here to sound the death knell for the interstate series, there is a reality with far greater gravity to consider.
Origin’s heroes are not immortals.
This year will mark 40 years that Origin has been around. Do the maths and suddenly you realise mortality for many of the series’ legends will become a pressing concern in the not-too-distant future.
Us Queenslanders have mourned deeply in the past for the loss of the great Artie Beetson, for the irreplaceable Peter Jackson, for the off-field bastions like Dick ‘Tosser’ Turner, Ron McAuliffe and Ross Livermore.
But rather than an unexpected shock, death is going to happen with greater frequency and predictability in years to come.
One of Origin’s greatest strengths is the ease with which the wider public can sew together and understand the narrative of the concept.
We know, comprehend and revere it deeply, because it occurred all within one lifetime.
The overwhelming majority of Origin participants are still of this earth, and seemingly each year, there is a gem released from their memory banks to further garnish the legend.
It’s one of the reasons the pre-Origin games between Queensland and New South Wales seem to pale into insignificance now.
It’s not solely that the rules of eligibility have changed.
A great reason modern society fails to grasp the pre-1980 period wholly is because it feels incomplete.
Too many participants have died. Too many stories have been lost. Too many results and individuals are now little more than sentences in books, devoid of the colour and character they once possessed as social currency.
I have a friend, a very well-meaning and well-educated friend, who asked me quite innocently recently if Clive Berghofer was a former Queensland player.
He asked me because the former Toowoomba mayor and philanthropist’s name appears on so many landmarks around the state, including the Broncos’ training facility and Toowoomba’s major stadium.
Stepping back, it’s quite an easy mistake to make.
In years to come, separating your Clive Berghofers from your Herb Steinohrts, Vic Armbrusters, Tom Gormans and Duncan Thompsons is going to become even more muddled than it already is.
At the moment, Origin folklore doesn’t have that issue.
There are plenty of people who can rattle of the 200-odd names to represent the modern-day Maroons without breaking a sweat.
But we are past the watershed point now where most of Australian society was born or migrated after State of Origin began in 1980.
Spare me the day when somebody accidentally believes Clive Palmer was a Maroon or – given the equality of 2019 – that Pauline Hanson played a part in the formative years of women’s rugby league.
The younger generation’s memories of the State of Origin concept are already incomplete, even if they have been diligent in tracking down old footage and getting to know their history.
In recent years the number of journalists, photographers and commentators who covered the early years of Origin have thinned – and with them little snippets of time have been lost.
Sadly, that will soon begin extending to more coaches, to more players, to more individuals who crept inside the inner sanctum of the Maroons and Blues.
It will reach a point where long sportsmans’ luncheons can no longer bank on having a 1980s original series player on hand.
The players will become harder to find, more infirm of memory, more reluctant to leave their homes.
And, so, we will move on to celebrating the legends of the mid-80s, the 1990s, then the 2000s and so forth.
But each step of the way, something will be lost; our collective appreciation for Origin as a whole will diminish, even if only a fraction at a time.
If you thought political correctness and overly-protective media managers had snuffed out the great yarns in the game, unfortunately you need to prepare for that hollow sensation to magnify.
This situation reminds us why it is imperative rugby league pays greater regard to its records, to its storytellers, and to the way it communicates with former players.
It’s been heartening to watch the relationship between organisations like FOGs (Former Origin Greats) and the Queensland Rugby League strengthen as the years have passed.
For, as much as we consider everyone who has pulled on an Origin jersey to be ‘legends’, we cannot pretend the same status will be afforded them as the ANZACs.
They shall grow old. Age will weary them.
As it will us.