AFL CEO Andrew Dillon is keen to add the State of Origin back into his competition’s fixtures.
With the success of the NRL’s State of Origin II being held at the MCG on Wednesday night, drawing a crowd of 90,084, Dillon has reignited the debate.
The AFL’s State of Origin concepts fizzled out across the 21st century, as clubs looked to prioritise players’ health and fitness for their own premiership pushes.
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But, with Tasmania set to enter the league in 2028, becoming the AFL’s 19th team, Dillon is ready to begin roadmapping the path back to representative state games each year.
“I’d love to see the best of the best playing in the men’s and women’s competition,” Dillon told The Age on Thursday.
“How that plays itself out is a conversation (I want to have).
“I’d love to get the feedback from our players and from our clubs. It is something that I would really like to investigate.”
But, while the hype of the match would likely be the same for the fans, it’s the hesitation of clubs to release their best players to compete, that may hold back the concept.
“That is the bit that would need to play out, drawing on that tradition of state v state,” Dillon said.
“There is something in that but, again, how it plays out and when you play it, that is all the detail. It is something we should look at.”
While today’s generation of AFL players may not consider playing for their state as important as winning a premiership for their club, it meant a lot to those who came before them.
Paul Roos, who played 356 games for Fitzroy and Sydney, before coaching the Swans to their 72-year drought-breaking premiership in 2005, declared representing his home state was even better than winning flags.
“To play for Victoria in that era was undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements,” Roos told the ABC.
Meantime, former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire spoke on Nine’s Footy Classified about what it meant to him as a spectator, before he entered the club world, where his view on the matches changed.
“I loved it until I became president and you panic about players getting hurt,” Maguire said in May.
“Do it before the season starts, once every three years, and do it as a carnival in, say, Tasmania, to continue that flavour.”
State of Origin in the V/AFL began back in 1977 and was played until 1999.
The last game that was played between Victoria and the All Stars was back at the start of 2020.
The match was played to raise funds for bushfire relief. Before that, in 2008, a hall of fame tribute match took place.
There have also been a handful of international rules matches, where the best players from each AFL team head overseas to face off against Ireland’s representative team in a series of Gaelic football/AFL hybrid matches.