Opinion
There’s an annual argument for a stand-alone State of Origin period – putting the regular NRL competition on pause rather than trotting out teams diluted by absences.
When the talent pool is stretched across two additional clubs, that argument will get louder. Over the weekend, on top of the many Origin absentees, the casualty ward included James Fisher-Harris, Leka Halasima, Viliame Kikau, Jack Wighton, Nicho Hynes and many more.
What did we get? Three cracking games played with desperate intensity, and a Friday night serving of the razzle-dazzle that is making the Dolphins everyone’s second-favourite team.
A lot of exciting newcomers made their debuts. Yes, the Origin period distorts the comp, but it has also revealed grounds for optimism that this magic pudding of a football code will keep producing enough talent to sustain its expansion.
NRL should draw Klein in the sand
The rule of every scandal since the break-in to the Watergate building is that the cover-up is worse than the crime. Still, nobody learns.
So it has turned out with Ashley Klein-Gate, where a six-year secret around the NRL’s investigation of the referee’s gambling debts has been blown open by this masthead’s Chris Barrett.
Is the cover-up any surprise? The NRL’s Statement of Beliefs does not include the word “transparency”. In fact, core tenets of “Discipline” (“We operate strategically – not reactively – with a sense of calm”) and “Positivity” (“We always talk the game up, not down”) form part of a self-awarded license to keep bad news quiet.
If there were welfare reasons for covering up Klein’s gambling problem when the league investigated it, surely those same reasons should be considered in putting him under the Origin II klieg lights on Wednesday.
Fairly or not, the revelations about Klein will act as a big fat multiplier on whatever contentious decisions inevitably affect the match.
This is a bad news story waiting to happen, and it is oddly out of character for the ultra-pragmatic NRL not to read the room and give Klein a night off.
Tiger’s roar emotion
If anyone should know not to celebrate prematurely, you’d think it was Wests Tigers fans. At 12-0 up, a packed Leichhardt Oval, hosting its last game for 18 months, was singing Take Me Home, Country Roads as a victory anthem.
Six minutes later, Keano Kini had set up three magical tries for the Titans and John Denver had been shoved in a place where the sun wasn’t shining.
It all turned out well in the end, with the Tigers winning a classic.
Upon scoring the match-winning try, Jarome Luai nearly blew his headgear off, repeatedly screaming “Shut the f— up!” at the nearest grandstand. After receiving criticism since signing with the PNG Chiefs, Luai was understandably letting off steam. But at whom? The Tigers fans he was eyeballing?
As a leader in the game, Luai’s role is to “always talk the game up, not down”. In explaining his actions, he simply said that his teammates “love me for who I am”.
Old-school Sharks warm the heart
The Sharks’ 10-8 defeat of the Warriors in Auckland was an old-fashioned slog, with one try apiece, of the sort that the 2026 rules were thought to have consigned to history.
But it did have some modern touches, such as the bizarre shot clock penalty against the Warriors. In the 18th minute, with the Warriors to take a line dropout, the scoreboard clock went out of action.
Chanel Harris-Tevita asked referee Gerard Sutton how long he had to take the kick.
“Five seconds,” Sutton said. He guessed wrong. Two seconds later, as Harris-Tevita prepared to kick, the big bad buzzer went off.
Rather than allowing for his own mistake – “That’s not my problem,” he told the Warriors – Sutton gave the Sharks a penalty and two points.
Did it decide the match? Maybe. Or maybe it was decided by an incredible sequence in the final minutes when Cronulla’s Will Kennedy charged down a field-goal attempt yet somehow absorbed the ball into his stomach, shortly after which Braydon Trindall kicked the sweetest long-range drop-goal since Laurie Monaghan’s legendary effort for Sydney to beat Wales at the Sydney Sports Ground in 1978. Yes, for those who can remember, it was that sweet.
MCG victory would leave Blues laughing
A last thought on Origin II. Year after year, New South Wales have picked a strong team, been perfectly prepared, had everything go their way, and still managed to lose.
This year has seen weird selections, a shambles of a performance in Sydney until Queensland lost Kalyn Ponga, a fluky last-minute win, more injuries than the US Civil War, and a coach, Laurie Daley, lambasted north, south, east and west of the border.
In the circumstances, it would be pretty funny if the Blues wrap it up on Wednesday. If the Maroons lose the unlosable, they can feel like the Blues for a change.
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Malcolm Knox is a journalist, author and columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.
