History of AFL State of Origin & Interstate Carnivals

Posted on 07 May 2008 by Jermayn

State of Origin officially started when Western Australia defeated Victoria by 94 points at Subiaco Oval on October 8th 1977. However the states of Australia have been playing against each other since 1879 (to current) with various interstate carnivals and games being held all around the states and territories of Australia.

1908 Interstate Football Carnival programe

History of Interstate Carnivals

The first ever interstate games was held in 1879 with the VFA beating SA twice by a margin of 7 and 3 goals. The first major interstate carnival with seven teams (Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, New South Wales, South Australia, New Zealand and WA) was in 1908 with the VFL undefeated (see results).

From 1908 to 1993 the carnivals were played every 3 - 5 years all around the country. Thanks to Full Points Footy who has a list of the years including results. Between 1908 and 1975 Victoria won 18 times (WA twice and SA once).

History of VFL/ AFL State of Origin

The biggest problem of the Interstate carnivals was the unevenness of the competition. With most of the better players of the various states playing in the VFL it meant that they were automatically playing for the VFL instead of their home states. Examples were players like Malcom Blight, Graham Moss, Polly Farmer and the Daniher brothers who all played for their own state and also Victoria.

What followed was a campaign by the WA league for players to be selected according to the region of origin rather than the league they play in. What followed for 20 odd years was a more even competition until the demise of the state of origin games in 1999 which saw Victoria undefeated since 1991.

The downfall of State of Origin

The 1970s and the 1980s was the best era of state of origin especially the 1989 Victoria vs SA game with over 90, 000 fans seeing Victoria beat SA. However it did not last with the 1990s becoming a farce with one sided games and the introduction of the Allies (TAS, ACT, QLD, NSW, NT) so in 1999 the last ever State of Origin game was played (see results of the games).

Some argue that the demise of the State Of Origin was due to coaches like Michael Malthouse (then West Coast Eagles coach) who coached WA during the 90s and continually did not play his stars so they were not injured and missed games for the regular season.

Hall of Fame Tribute Match with Victoria vs the Dream Team

Others argue that seeing the games were just meaningless exhibition games that didn’t produce a national champion. It had no pride of winning the hard fought games as the regular season had a premiership cup.

Others argue that seeing the AFL is now a national competition with the players playing all around the country, the desire to beat the croweaters or the sandgropers or the Big V is gone.

AFL Hall of Fame Tribute Match

This last ditch effort to revise the state of origin games has had mix reactions and it wont be until Saturday 10th May until we see if it has been successful or not.

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Discussion elsewhere

Do we REALLY want more AFL teams? | The A to F to L of Australian Football Says:
July 16th, 2008 at 10:31 am
[...] One good outcome of adding two new teams could be an even draw with every team playing each other once with half at home and half away and then next year they swap. So if Collingwood plays Fremantle at the MCG, next year they will play at Subiaco. This would mean instead of 22 rounds, you would have 17 rounds and the possibility of a proper State of Origin series. [...]