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Is The Tide Turning With State Of Origin Perception?


Scubby

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Can't directly link to it here as it is in the videos section https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl but Latrell Mitchell talking about Brad Fitler and Origin etc. "he keeps saying Origin is the pinnacle but it's not, playing for your country in the pinnacle."

I wonder whether having so many players around you in NRL club football now who have their 'pinnacle' as the Kiwis or Samoa or Tonga or Fiji or England or PNG is really starting to rub off on the Australian players themselves? I would imagine it is the same with junior Polynesian/Kiwi club players being recruited as teenagers too. 

Twenty years ago, 90-95% of players running around in the NRL would be under the Origin/Kangaroos vice grip. Now it is a different landscape.

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While I think there may be some personal agenda with Mitchell at work here after being dropped from the NSW Origin team but remaining a Kangaroo incumbent, I think more players in the NRL seeing international League as the pinnacle is a very good thing indeed and it will be a positive in the long run.

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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2 hours ago, The Future is League said:

The biggest honour in team sport is to play for your country not a city suburb or state or county

For me, it isn't. I grew up in an Irish family and have supported Ireland all my life in all sports apart from cricket and rugby league because in my youth, Ireland didn't have cricket or rugby league. Therefore, I have always supported England/GB. I can't change that now. 

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Good on Mitchell for saying that. I like Fittler, but I found his commentary around the tests pretty ordinary. To have a former Australian captain and professional commentator not know when the world cup is on, or that there's an ashes series coming up is poor. Back it up with his assumption that Australia should beat Tonga easily, and the total lack of credit he gave them for outmuscling us, and it's clear his attitude towards test footy isn't great. I spose that's what never losing a series over his whole test career has done. 

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Coming from Latrell Mitchell that comes off like the guy that screams back at his former boss "I'm not fired because I quit" after he's just been fired.

But honestly, the whole "pinnacle of the game" thing is really stupid because the pinnacle means different things to different people. It's totally based on the persons opinion and not on any measurable facts.

Now what part of the game is the biggest and/or most successful is a different question, because unlike what the pinnacle is which is just an opinion, and one that is informed by an agenda most of the time, what is the biggest and/or most successful part of the game is measurable.

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6 hours ago, Wile E Cayote said:

For me, it isn't. I grew up in an Irish family and have supported Ireland all my life in all sports apart from cricket and rugby league because in my youth, Ireland didn't have cricket or rugby league. Therefore, I have always supported England/GB. I can't change that now. 

What i was saying in British Rugby Leagues case was that its a bigger honour to play for England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales that it is Yorkshire or Lancashire. It is an honour to play for Yorkshire and Lancashire, but not a bigger honour that playing for your country

In Australia's Rugby League case i was saying its a bigger honour to play for Australia that it is to play for NSW or QLD. Yes it a honour to play for NSW or QLD, but the bigger honour is playing for Australia.

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18 hours ago, Dunbar said:

While I think there may be some personal agenda with Mitchell at work here after being dropped from the NSW Origin team but remaining a Kangaroo incumbent, I think more players in the NRL seeing international League as the pinnacle is a very good thing indeed and it will be a positive in the long run.

It helps with a key figurehead like Meninga pushing the honour of representing your country. Although he’s got a vested interest, it comes across as genuine and must infiltrate the players somewhat 

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14 hours ago, The Future is League said:

The biggest honour in team sport is to play for your country not a city suburb or state or county

The biggest honour is what you believe is your greatest achievement and what it means to YOU as a player I would have thought.

Talent is secondary to whether players are confident.

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17 hours ago, The Future is League said:

The biggest honour in team sport is to play for your country not a city suburb or state or county

That doesn’t have to be the case, for example I imagine an NFL player would rather play in the super bowl than for an international American football team (I assume they exist), same with Aussie Rules. Also a lot of players these days obviously aren’t too fussed about playing for England in football and would prefer the honour of playing for a big club. 

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9 hours ago, Eddie said:

That doesn’t have to be the case, for example I imagine an NFL player would rather play in the super bowl than for an international American football team (I assume they exist), same with Aussie Rules. Also a lot of players these days obviously aren’t too fussed about playing for England in football and would prefer the honour of playing for a big club. 

NFL is not a international sport, so the highlight would be playing in the Super bowel.

Aussie rules in not a international sport.The highlight would be playing in a grand final.

Its not even Australian in origin. Its a misnomer to call it Aussie.

Its a fusion of Rugby and Gaelic football played on a Cricket oval.

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1 hour ago, The Future is League said:

NFL is not a international sport, so the highlight would be playing in the Super bowel.

Aussie rules in not a international sport.The highlight would be playing in a grand final.

Its not even Australian in origin. Its a misnomer to call it Aussie.

Its a fusion of Rugby and Gaelic football played on a Cricket oval.

Both are team sports where there is international competition at least on some level, and you saying that they aren't "international sports" pretty much proves his point, because if they wanted to the NFL could put on USA vs Germany/Canada or whatever and the AFL could put on Australia vs NZ or whoever, and that could be the first stepping stone to a full international competition, but they don't because they don't value international competition.

Taking things back to RL for a second, if you polled former players in both the NRL and SL about what they felt their greatest achievement was, you'd get a sizable group that would say either winning their first grand final or winning a particularly emotional one, and undoubtedly in Australia you'd get another sizable group that would say winning this or that SOO series.

You may not like that, but it's undeniably true.

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1 hour ago, The Great Dane said:

Both are team sports where there is international competition at least on some level, and you saying that they aren't "international sports" pretty much proves his point, because if they wanted to the NFL could put on USA vs Germany/Canada or whatever and the AFL could put on Australia vs NZ or whoever, and that could be the first stepping stone to a full international competition, but they don't because they don't value international competition.

Taking things back to RL for a second, if you polled former players in both the NRL and SL about what they felt their greatest achievement was, you'd get a sizable group that would say either winning their first grand final or winning a particularly emotional one, and undoubtedly in Australia you'd get another sizable group that would say winning this or that SOO series.

You may not like that, but it's undeniably true.

A good example is basketball as it is a popular sport throughout the the world with a dominant league. The World Championships were a few months ago (an event that occurs every 4 years). USA essentially sent their 'D' team full if young kids as all the top stars (Lebron James, Steph Curry, Kawai Leonard etc) withdraw to focus on their NBA teams.

Playing for the USA national team in any tournament other than the Olympics really doesn't mean much to most players.

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6 hours ago, The Great Dane said:

Both are team sports where there is international competition at least on some level, and you saying that they aren't "international sports" pretty much proves his point, because if they wanted to the NFL could put on USA vs Germany/Canada or whatever and the AFL could put on Australia vs NZ or whoever, and that could be the first stepping stone to a full international competition, but they don't because they don't value international competition.

Taking things back to RL for a second, if you polled former players in both the NRL and SL about what they felt their greatest achievement was, you'd get a sizable group that would say either winning their first grand final or winning a particularly emotional one, and undoubtedly in Australia you'd get another sizable group that would say winning this or that SOO series.

You may not like that, but it's undeniably true.

? I don't know what your on mate but i would like some.

Perhaps you could give me a list of born and bred Kiwis playing in the AFL that are regulars for their teams, and what about German and Canadian players in the NFL while your about it.

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7 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

? I don't know what your on mate but i would like some.

Perhaps you could give me a list of born and bred Kiwis playing in the AFL that are regulars for their teams, and what about German and Canadian players in the NFL while your about it.

Firstly, they don't need to be born a bred, using RL's standards they only need to have a grandparent from said country.

A quarter of Australia's population is either born overseas or has a parent that was born overseas. It'd have to be very close to half (if not marginally more then half) of the population that has at least one grandparent born overseas.

So taking that into account a huge portion of AFL players would be eligible to play international RL, and using RL standards they could easily field reasonably competitive Irish, Kiwi, English, Scottish, and American teams, they'd probably be able to pull off less competitive (you could call them second and third tier) Lebanese, Sudanese, Papuan, Turkish, Greek, and Italian teams, and maybe even a few of the other Pi's as well.  

Secondly, they don't have to be regular first graders to be eligible for internationals, let alone competitive. If we held that standard in RL then outside of Aus, NZ, Eng, and some of the PI's, none of the teams would be able to field a team. Let me also not so subtly remind you that a Lebanese 9's team made up mainly of second and third graders recently beat an English team built exclusively of NRL and SL players, and within the last decade an Italian team of similar makeup beat the full English team. . . So yeah maybe I wouldn't be so quick to play down the abilities of players that haven't made first grade if I was you.

Yet despite the above the AFL doesn't hold international fixtures, because they don't value them.

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5 hours ago, AB90 said:

A good example is basketball as it is a popular sport throughout the the world with a dominant league. The World Championships were a few months ago (an event that occurs every 4 years). USA essentially sent their 'D' team full if young kids as all the top stars (Lebron James, Steph Curry, Kawai Leonard etc) withdraw to focus on their NBA teams.

Playing for the USA national team in any tournament other than the Olympics really doesn't mean much to most players.

That is a very good example, but you don't even have to look outside of RL for an example.

Many people around here aren't going to like me saying it, but just look at the way that most NRL teams treat the WCC and World Club Series (or whatever it was called). Most of them put in the bare minimum necessary to get the payday with as few injuries as possible, that is unless they can get out of it altogether.

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2 hours ago, The Great Dane said:

Yet despite the above the AFL doesn't hold international fixtures, because they don't value them.

You're right about everything except this. 

They have their own World Cup and play internationals.

I've seen a Chilean heritage team.

Also, look up AFL Asia.

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55 minutes ago, Pulga said:

You're right about everything except this. 

They have their own World Cup and play internationals.

Which is exclusively contested by amateurs, has only ever been held in Australia (and I'm pretty sure it's only been held in Melbourne as well), is only broadcast in Australia (and IIRC, that was only once on a national broadcaster), isn't marketed to overseas markets at all, and an Australian team is excluded from participating in it.

It's also an initiative by the AFL's development arm, with the objective being to get more ethnically diverse Australians (i.e. people living in Australia) interested in and hopefully playing the sport.

55 minutes ago, Pulga said:

Also, look up AFL Asia.

AFL Asia, the USAFL, AFL Europe, etc, etc, are all run by expats (partially funded by the AFL to some extent I admit) and almost all of the participates are expats.

They do not participate in international competition with the AFL it's self, and none of them have any means by which to do so.

Pretty much all of the AFL's international stuff exists as a weird form of self aggrandisement, so they can do exactly what you are doing, by saying 'look we have international competitions and participation', when really they don't have any of any note, and everything that they do internationally is the most token gesture possible. It's all designed to appeal to the insecurities of the audience that seeks it out back home in Australia, and not as any serious attempt to grow the sport internationally in any meaningful way.

If such a day comes when either the AFL starts to regularly put on proper professional international fixtures with the best players available, or they start bankrolling either a professional AFL team or league internationally (all of which they've had the means to do for decades now if they wanted to, BTW), I'll agree with you. 

But until that day it's all smoke and mirrors and not a serious concerted effort to grow their sport internationally.  

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11 hours ago, The Great Dane said:

Which is exclusively contested by amateurs, has only ever been held in Australia (and I'm pretty sure it's only been held in Melbourne as well), is only broadcast in Australia (and IIRC, that was only once on a national broadcaster), isn't marketed to overseas markets at all, and an Australian team is excluded from participating in it.

It's also an initiative by the AFL's development arm, with the objective being to get more ethnically diverse Australians (i.e. people living in Australia) interested in and hopefully playing the sport.

AFL Asia, the USAFL, AFL Europe, etc, etc, are all run by expats (partially funded by the AFL to some extent I admit) and almost all of the participates are expats.

They do not participate in international competition with the AFL it's self, and none of them have any means by which to do so.

Pretty much all of the AFL's international stuff exists as a weird form of self aggrandisement, so they can do exactly what you are doing, by saying 'look we have international competitions and participation', when really they don't have any of any note, and everything that they do internationally is the most token gesture possible. It's all designed to appeal to the insecurities of the audience that seeks it out back home in Australia, and not as any serious attempt to grow the sport internationally in any meaningful way.

If such a day comes when either the AFL starts to regularly put on proper professional international fixtures with the best players available, or they start bankrolling either a professional AFL team or league internationally (all of which they've had the means to do for decades now if they wanted to, BTW), I'll agree with you. 

But until that day it's all smoke and mirrors and not a serious concerted effort to grow their sport internationally.  

I thing we agree that there is zero interest in AFL outside of Australia.

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On 10/12/2019 at 03:14, The Great Dane said:

Both are team sports where there is international competition at least on some level, and you saying that they aren't "international sports" pretty much proves his point, because if they wanted to the NFL could put on USA vs Germany/Canada or whatever and the AFL could put on Australia vs NZ or whoever, and that could be the first stepping stone to a full international competition, but they don't because they don't value international competition.

Taking things back to RL for a second, if you polled former players in both the NRL and SL about what they felt their greatest achievement was, you'd get a sizable group that would say either winning their first grand final or winning a particularly emotional one, and undoubtedly in Australia you'd get another sizable group that would say winning this or that SOO series.

You may not like that, but it's undeniably true.

Your first paragraph is nonsense. Neither are valued internationally because to all intents and purposes neither are played outside their country of origin. A nation being able to cobble together a group of amateurs to make up a Gridiron team is of interest to no-one. 

Your second paragraph is true, and to a degree it ties into what I stated above. RL has some value internationally (unlike Gridiron, or Aussie rules) but it isn’t the pinnacle - certainly for most Aussies, hence the state of origin really took off in the early 80s, a contest that was sparked by the lack of a challenge for the Aussie national team. The hardest test for an Australian was playing against each other. Really, it still is. Until that changes they will value state of origin as the ultimate.

 

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3 hours ago, DC77 said:

Your first paragraph is nonsense. Neither are valued internationally because to all intents and purposes neither are played outside their country of origin. A nation being able to cobble together a group of amateurs to make up a Gridiron team is of interest to no-one.

I said that they (the AFL and NFL) don't value international competition, not that their sports aren't valued internationally (which definitely isn't the case with American Football anyway), those are two vastly different things. 

So you aren't even arguing against the point that I made, but if you had read on in the discussion you'd know that if the AFL wanted to they could easily field international teams built mainly of full time professionals for at least 4-5 nations (and I imagine that similar is true for the NFL).

So it wouldn't be a group of amateurs cobbled together (which BTW describes most of international RL as well), it'd be teams very similar to the Tongan RL team, which is made up almost exclusively of players who weren't born in Tonga and most would say are actually from Australia and NZ (the only exception is Konrad Hurrell who was born and raised in Tonga), but who qualify on heritage grounds and have chosen to represent that heritage.

Now the question is if the AFL could have serious international competition, which we've established that they could, then why don't they? Well that is simply because, for whatever reasons, they don't value international competition!

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i dont understand all the angst about origin.

its worth around 50 million a year for the ARLC.

its a great tool for expanding the sport in australia to AFL states.

all these conspiracy theories about the ARLC trying to devalue international football to protect origin are hilarious

the ARLC would love to have international football be as succesful as origin.

and its not like they did a whole lot to make origin the sucess it is either.  it just grew on its own

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