State of the Origin

The State of the Origin is an annual series of 3 rugby league football matches between the states of New South Wales and Queensland. Whichever team wins 2 of the 3 games wins the series.  Queensland, the Maroons, has won the past 8 years, until now. The competition is one of the regions premier sporting events, showcasing some of the world’s best rugby.

On June 18th, I joined over 83,000 fans in Olympic Park’s ANZ Stadium to watch the second game of the series. New South Wales, the east coast state home to Sydney, had won the previous game and only needed one more win to win the series. It was a great event and quite interesting to observe how Australian fans act and support their teams.

I,  of course, supported my home away from home, the Blues, NSW. The Blues all wore blue Afros and jerseys. It’s a great look, the entire NSW section looking similar with a lot of puffy blue hair. It looks like someone out of a Doctor Seuss book.

I sat way up high with a perfect view of the entire stadium and really enjoyed the energy of the crowd and being at Australia’s “Superbowl”. My team didn’t look too great for the first 3 quarters of the game, but then pulled through in the last 10 minutes to win the game! The game was rough, with many added punches and even some choking. Rugby is definitely a hard core sport, the roughest sport I’ve ever watched and not one that I would want to try.

The crowd around me was hilarious. To stay entertained during the slow parts people from the back would fly paper airplanes and try to get them to the lower levels of the stadium. When an airplane made it the whole section would cheer. hah. They also were pretty creative with chants, calling people wankers among other choice words.

I was just glad to be there and witness the historic win. It was a great day out, journeying on the train and walking in a sea of blue.