Rucci's Rip: Origin is finally dead

South Australia takes on Victoria in the State of Origin match from 1993. Source: adelaidenow

A DAY after the state was divided for Showdown XXXIV it seems it will never again be united for State of Origin.

Before he was sent on a six-month "holiday" for his part in the Kurt Tippett saga, Crows chief executive Steven Trigg was eager for AAMI Stadium to have a major event to mark the last AFL season at the West Lakes arena.

His preference was for the game that made Football Park burst at the seams in the 1980s - an SA-Victorian Origin battle.

It never came to be, firstly out of difficulty in finding a place for the game on the AFL calendar.

End-of-season was out of reach, particularly when players are in a rush for corrective surgery or their holidays. Mid-season no longer works because clubs put the premiership race ahead of exhibition games.

Pre-season - between the NAB Cup final and the start of the premiership season - was the only viable option.

And that is where the big event for AAMI Stadium did unfold with Adelaide handed the right to open the AFL premiership season, just as it did in 1991.

The Crows played Essendon, the team that offered Adelaide its first trial game in that heady summer of 1990-91.

So Origin is dead.

And by the Victorians' reckoning, every South Australian should be grateful. At least Brownlow medallist Gerard Healy thinks that way.

Patrick Dangerfield, one of the top-rated Adelaide Crows to be prominent in Top 50 lists nationally, just happens to be a "foreigner". Picture: Wayne Ludbey

He was behind his microphone at Melbourne radio station 3AW this week when he looked over Chad Cornes' list of the top 10 South Australians in the AFL (it is the year for lists, apparently).

Strangely, Cornes could not find room in this elite list for Adelaide midfielder Scott Thompson .... Healy's assessment is the Big V would have flattened an SA Origin team quicker than some Port Adelaide fans want to run the bulldozers over AAMI Stadium.

He may have a point considering how many Victorians made the top 50 lists compared to South Australians this year.

After all, the top-two rated Crows - Patrick Dangerfield (Victoria) and Taylor Walker (NSW) - are "foreigners".

Adelaide and Port Adelaide have non-South Australians as captains - Crows skipper Nathan van Berlo is a West Australian; his Power counterpart, Travis Boak, is a Victorian.

Damian Monkhorst takes on David Pittman in the SA-Victoria State of Origin match in 1995.

This does not seem to be SA's strongest moment to put together an Origin team, particularly one to farewell AAMI Stadium where Graham Cornes, as a coach, defended the state's football reputation against the Big V with an unprecedented run of victories.

Port Adelaide captain Travis Boak is another top flight player who is a "foreigner". Picture: Matt Turner Source: The Advertiser

Or where Stephen Kernahan single-handedly dismantled the Big V defence while fans tore down fences on AAMI Stadium's perimeter to see the moment. And Andrew Jarman bewildered the Victorians to win five Fos Williams Medals.

Long live the memories for that is all we will have of Origin battles, particularly when even the players have given up the fight to restore the true Origin format to the AFL calendar.

They remain fascinated by following the American theme of "East v West" ... a game sure to win the support of the fans, let alone the AFL clubs that see exhibition games as no more than a risk (by injury) to their premiership dreams.

And as you look at the team that would have represented SA in Trigg's farewell gesture to AAMI Stadium ask this question: What has happened to the classic SA-bred rover?

SA ORIGIN TEAM
B: M. Mattner (Sydney), B. Rutten (Adelaide), B. Waters (West Coast)
HB: C. Enright (Geelong), S. Fisher (St Kilda), M. Mackie (Geelong)
C: K. Cornes (Port Adelaide), S. Thompson (Adelaide), H. Hartlett (Port Adelaide)
HF: J. Westhoff (Port Adelaide), M. Pavlich (Fremantle), A. Monfries (Port Adelaide)
F: J. Petrenko (Adelaide), J. Schulz (Port Adelaide), L. Thomas (N Melbourne)
1R: S. Jacobs (Adelaide), R. Griffen (W Bulldogs), Brad Ebert (Port Adelaide)
Int: D. Brogan (GWS), B. Gibbs (Carlton), A. Cooney (W Bulldogs), B. Vince (Adelaide)
Emer: J. Redden (Brisbane), J. Patfull (Brisbane), D. Pearce (Fremantle)
Coach: Brenton Sanderson (Adelaide).

The strain shows on James Hird emerges from a meeting at Windy Hill. Picture: Mike Keating Source: Herald Sun

RIP IT UP
1. JAMES HIRD
EVERY sport has its "icon" - a champion who is saintly, who is everything the fan wants from a hero.

American baseball had its icon with "Shoeless" Joe Jackson who became caught in the "Black Sox" scandal in 1919 when the Chicago White Sox team was accused of selling the World Series. The catchphrase of the moment became "Tell us it ain't so, Joe".

Almost a century later, Australian football has its heartbreak moment. So many want James Hird to say it ain't so. He gets his chance tomorrow when the Essendon great fronts the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority to answer claims he took banned substances last year.

2. MARK NEELD
GREATER Western Sydney is favoured to score its first win of this AFL season - and third in its short AFL history - on Sunday when the Giants travel to the MCG to face the troubled Melbourne Demons.

The last time the Giants won - beating Port Adelaide - it forced the sacking of coach Matthew Primus.

Melbourne coach Mark Neeld is in the hot seat.

3. AFL-SANFL AGREEMENT
WHY would Glenelg have to pay South Adelaide a transfer fee for Crows ruckman-forward Shaun McKernan considering he was never a Panther but a Victorian drafted into the SANFL by the Adelaide Football Club?

There are some strange bits of paper that come from SANFL House, including that constitution that declared the head of the Port Adelaide Football Club is a "chairman" when the club had always had a president.

4. SA AMATEUR FOOTBALL LEAGUE
SA Football Commissioner David Shipway has his hands full keeping the SA Amateur Football League under the SANFL umbrella - and in sorting out the strange rules that have applied to the Adelaide University Football Club but no other team in the SAAFL.

But in a spare moment "Shippy" may want to ask how the SAAFL has allowed some teams to become punching bags, such as the Tea Tree Gully team in division 6.

The Gullies scored 3.7 (25) on Saturday. But they conceded 47.22 (304) to Colonel Light Gardens. Perhaps SAAFL boss Mr Capogrecco could explain how this is allowed to happen.

5. OSTRICHES
GEOFF Roach wrote in Saturday's Advertiser that devotees of the SANFL will not attended a Power-hosted Showdown because they "have never forgiven Port Adelaide for the 1990 treachery that led to the formation of the Adelaide Football Club and the inevitable downgrading of the suburban competition".

When these people come up for air again, could they please explain how the SANFL was going to avoid losing top billing in town once SA entered a team in the AFL?

Or was SA to stop Australian football from being a national game? And for all that 1990 was, didn't the SANFL remain the best state league in the land? And why do they barrack for the Crows then?

RIPPER OF THE WEEK
"THEY have better colours."
CROWS staffer questioned as to why she would wear Port Adelaide colours to the office on Friday during Showdown week.

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