One brilliant quip from Steve Mortimer said it all.
New South Wales had just clinched the State of Origin shield for the first time, halting the dominance of Queensland after four years of pain.
The breakthrough came on the night of Tuesday, June 11, 1985, when the Blues trumped the Maroons 21-14 in front of a 39,068-strong crowd at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
“Turvey,” said Queensland forward Paul Vautin to Mortimer.
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“You just did a Queensland on Queensland.”
The Blues’ halfback and captain fired back the perfect reply.
“Piss off, Fatty,” Mortimer said.
“We did a NSW on Queensland.”
NSW’s first Origin series victory is relived in a terrific book released in November: If These Walls Could Talk: A Celebration of the Sydney Cricket Ground, written by Sydney Morning Herald chief sports writer Andrew Webster.
As the chapter on the Blues’ series win explains, NSW had dominated over the first 71 years of the interstate rivalry, spanning 1908 to 1979.
But the Origin era began with Queensland winning one-off games in 1980 and 1981, before downing NSW in all three series between 1982 and 1984.
The Blues’ genuine hatred for the Maroons over the first four years of the Origin era was undeniable.
It blew out of control on the second tackle of game two of the 1984 series, when one of the most infamous all-in brawls in Origin history was sparked by a Steve Roach punch.
The Balmain front-rower was one of four men involved in a tackle on Queensland centre Gene Miles – but instead of wrapping his arms, he unloaded a barrage of uppercuts.
Referee Barry Gomersall, more commonly known as ‘The Grasshopper’, had no hope of stopping the fight, as players wrestled and threw punches at anyone wearing a rival jumper in a wild brawl that lasted more than two minutes.
But despite the hatred that lingered between the sides throughout the opening four years of the Origin era, a 2-1 defeat was the best series result NSW could muster.
Legendary five-eighth Wally Lewis, now an Immortal, was the driving force behind Queensland’s dominance.
The Mortimer-inspired Blues stopped the rot when they backed up an 18-2 win at Lang Park with the 21-14 victory at the SCG to secure the shield in 1985.
When Vautin threw his jibe at Mortimer moments after the full-time siren sounded at the SCG, the stage was set for the most relieved man in NSW to floor him with his comeback.
“Not many people manage that – to put Paul Vautin back in his box with a one-liner – but that was pretty smart from Turvey,” Webster says in an interview with Wide World of Sports.
“There was merit in what Fatty said, because Queensland had taken Origin so seriously since its conception and NSW had just never quite got there.
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“I’ve heard (rugby league icon) Phil Gould talk about it in the past – that Queensland have always ‘got’ Origin better than NSW have.
“Well, the first person that really ‘got it’ for NSW was Steve Mortimer.
“In that chapter, I love the image from before the first game … when they’re going down Caxton Street (in Brisbane) and the Queensland fans are starting to rock the bus and (NSW hooker) Benny Elias is sitting at the back of the bus. He’d never played Origin before, looking out, looking at the Caxton Hotel, seeing these Queenslanders frothing at the mouth and throwing cans of XXXX at the bus and Turvey just saying, ‘See that? They hate us. Make sure we give it back to them in spades when we get on the field’.
“That’s where the real Origin contest was borne – in those matches in the mid-80s.”
Mortimer made his NSW debut in 1977 and played his first Origin game in the opening match of the 1982 series.
He was a member of every one of the losing Blues squads between 1982 and 1984 and was also repeatedly shunted throughout the first four years of the Origin era, for either Newtown star Tommy Raudonokis or Parramatta gun Peter Sterling.
“It was a time when NSW drew a line in the sand, finally,” Webster says of the 1985 series.
“And the person who drew the line in the sand was Steve Mortimer – the captain and the halfback, who’d suffered as many losses as any NSW player since Origin had first happened in 1980.”
Mortimer was chaired from the SCG turf by his teammates after the 1985 series win, hands in the air as he shouted to the heavens.
He then announced his retirement from representative football in the sheds, having conquered the pinnacle.
Des Hasler made his Origin debut in game three and the Blues lost 20-6 at Lang Park.
But those are minor details.
Mortimer had steered NSW to their first series victory and retired a winner.
“There’s that iconic image of him dropping to his knees and crying in the middle of the Sydney Cricket Ground. I’ve interviewed Turvey many times and particularly about this moment in time, for both the Herald and this book. And I said, ‘Why? What was the overriding feeling?’. And he said, ‘Relief’. He’s very religious, Turvey. And I said, ‘What were you doing?’. And he said, ‘I was just thanking God’.
“And that’s how much it meant to him.”
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