{"id":406900,"date":"2024-06-27T07:41:21","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T07:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=406900"},"modified":"2024-06-27T10:06:07","modified_gmt":"2024-06-27T10:06:07","slug":"afl-ceo-boldly-backs-state-of-origin-revival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=406900","title":{"rendered":"AFL CEO boldly backs State of Origin revival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wwos.nine.com.au\/afl\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"AFL\">AFL<\/a> CEO Andrew Dillon \ufeffis keen to add the State of Origin back into his competition&#x27;s fixtures.<\/p>\n<p>With the success of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/state-of-origin-2024-kurt-gidley-mcg-announcer-queensland-maroons-chant-nsw-blues-crowd-20240627-p5jp95.html\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"NRL&#x27;s State of Origin II being held at the MCG on Wednesday night\">NRL&#x27;s State of Origin II being held at the MCG on Wednesday night<\/a>, drawing a crowd of 90,084\ufeff, Dillon has reignited the debate.<\/p>\n<p>The AFL&#x27;s State of Origin concepts fizzled out across the 21st century, as clubs looked to prioritise players&#x27; health and fitness for their own premiership pushes.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/state-of-origin-2024-queensland-maroons-nsw-blues-result-highlights-video-zac-lomax-brian-too-tries-phil-gould-comments-20240626-p5jp3b.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>&#x27;Soft&#x27; Maroons hammered as Origin series squared<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/motorsport\/f1-news-2024-daniel-ricciardo-future-in-serious-doubt-at-rb-liam-lawson-helmut-marko-comments-20240627-p5jp5b.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Axe hangs over Ricciardo as F1 future in limbo<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/state-of-origin-2-2024-player-ratings-the-mole-nsw-blues-v-queensland-maroons-20240626-p5jp3r.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>&#x27;Not good enough&#x27;: Savage rating for Maroons star<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But, with Tasmania set to enter the league in 2028, becoming the AFL&#x27;s 19th team, \ufeffDillon is ready to begin roadmapping the path back to representative state games each year.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;d love to see the best of the best playing in the men&#x27;s and women&#x27;s competition,&quot; Dillon told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/sport\/afl\/it-s-something-we-should-look-at-dillon-puts-state-of-origin-back-on-the-afl-s-agenda-20240627-p5jp5x.html\" title=\"The Age\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">The Age<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"37f678db-c28b-42ca-89c2-d12baa85eea4\" src=\"https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/37f678db-c28b-42ca-89c2-d12baa85eea4\" alt=\"Will the AFL ever bring back State of Origin?\" data-width=\"3590\" data-height=\"2019\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&quot;How that plays itself out is a conversation (I want to have).<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;d love to get the feedback from our players and from our clubs. It is something that I would really like to investigate.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>But, while the hype of the match would likely be the same for the fans, it&#x27;s the hesitation of clubs to release their best players to compete, that may hold back the concept.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;That is the bit that would need to play out, drawing on that tradition of state v state,&quot; Dillon said.<\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"933f72db-bc33-4b00-9b50-3dffd729e7e8\" src=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/933f72db-bc33-4b00-9b50-3dffd729e7e8-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Andrew Dillon officially opened round zero in Sydney on Wednesday.\" data-width=\"5069\" data-height=\"3529\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&quot;There is something in that but, again, how it plays out and when you play it, that is all the detail. It is something we should look at.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>While today&#x27;s generation of AFL players may not consider playing for their state as important as winning a premiership for their club, it meant a lot to those who came before them.<\/p>\n<p>Paul Roos, who played 356 games for Fitzroy and Sydney, before coaching the Swans to their 72-year drought-breaking premiership in 2005, declared representing his home state was even better than winning flags.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;To play for Victoria in that era was undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements,&quot; Roos told the ABC.<\/p>\n<p><img data-video-id=\"6353437958112\" src=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/pickerimage-2024-05-22t213342.040.jpg\" alt=\"Calls to bring back AFL State of Origin\" data-vms-id=\"ref:clwhqx9jk00160gntmct5w9m9\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Meantime, former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire spoke on Nine&#x27;s <em>Footy Classified<\/em> about what it meant to him as a spectator, before he entered the club world, where his view on the matches changed.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I loved it until I became president and you panic about players getting hurt,&quot; Maguire said in May.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Do it before the season starts, once every three years, and do it as a carnival in, say, Tasmania, to continue that flavour.&quot;\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>State of Origin in the V\/AFL began back in 1977 and was played until 1999.<\/p>\n<p><img data-id=\"70a17440-572f-4364-8b3b-84c0e9fa26b9\" src=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/70a17440-572f-4364-8b3b-84c0e9fa26b9-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Will the AFL ever bring back State of Origin?\" data-width=\"3778\" data-height=\"2287\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The last game that was played between Victoria and the All Stars was back at the start of 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The match was played to raise funds for bushfire relief. Before that, in 2008, a hall of fame tribute match took place.<\/p>\n<p>There have also been a handful of international rules matches, where the best players from each AFL team head overseas to face off against Ireland&#x27;s representative team in a series of Gaelic football\/AFL hybrid matches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>AFL CEO Andrew Dillon \ufeffis keen to add the State of Origin back into his competition&#x27;s fixtures. With the success of the NRL&#x27;s State of <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=406900\" title=\"AFL CEO boldly backs State of Origin revival\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":406902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406900"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=406900"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406905,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406900\/revisions\/406905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/406902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=406900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=406900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=406900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}