If I talk State of Origin here, am I living in the past?
When someone goes to Confession for the first time in years to confess their past sins, it’s not because they want to wallow in the past but because they want to improve their future.
So I’m not wallowing. Not really. But for heaven’s sake, with two of Queensland’s best in Jonathan Thurston and Billy Slater both being either out or at least injured in all three games, 2017 was supposed to be the NSW Blues’ year! NSW led for all but eight minutes of the first two matches AND scored twice as many tries as Queensland! Sociologist Dr Edward C. Banfield, a Harvard University lecturer hired as a personal advisor to no less than three US Presidents undertook one of the largest studies on success and priority setting ever conducted. Banfield discovered the most successful people looked the furthest into the future when considering present decisions and the lesser successful were those with shorter time perspectives, right down to the hopeless alcoholic whose time perspective was limited to the next drink. Given Banfield’s research, I’ve had an early meeting with my Cabinet and we’ve come up with ways NSW can win State of Origin 2018.
I know he’s a Junee boy and I really like him, but Blues’ coach Laurie Daley has to go. Daley wants one more crack at coaching NSW, but a man on my cabinet wants one more crack at dating Elle MacPherson and Daley has won only one of five series.
The players need to change. They say a change is as good as a holiday and NSW have already had their fair share. This year saw the same NSW players fielded for all three games, which has not happened in SoO for either team in over 20 years. Queensland on the other hand used more and different players in their squad this year than had ever been used in the history of SoO. NSW need to use the home ground advantage.
Queensland would never dream of playing home games anywhere but Queensland, yet each alternating year NSW have the extra home game they play it in Melbourne, the sporting Capital of Australia. But according to a 2013 report in The Age, SoO games draw a higher Australian television audience than any other sporting event.
Instead of NSW playing their extra home ground game in NSW, NSW choose to play the MCG for an only extra 8000 in the crowd; a crowd that predominately boos them and cheers Queensland.
It’s good to know our state of origin, but better to decide what state we want our lives to be in in the future and to start making the decisions today that will take us there.
