2024 State Of Origin teams

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Mitch Duncan hbf for WA I think.

Wa team is still pretty good but not it’s best by along way, also not many high draft picks in the last few years be interested to see in 5 years time.

SA is not great through the spine but manning up those small forwards will be a job and a half could be effective with their own speed style game.
 
See, I think the players do care, and would love to do this lets say once every 3 years, but the clubs have too much power and they don't want it to happen.
I wonder what percentage of players would currently be intelligible due to not coming from Vic, WA or SA
 
Unless you have NSW/ACT vs QLD/NT in which case there would be 5 teams.

I think that would leave about 4% of current players ineligible for SoO
 
Just like NRL only has 2 teams, if AFL SoO was to be played again should just be the 3 - WA, SA and Vic. The rest aren't football states / or big enough.

Nice to name the other state teams though.
If Zerk-Thatcher is considered SA's best option at fullback, I'm questioning their status as a football state.
 

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The NRL SOO might have the two teams with the bitter rivalry, but I think the whole point and advantage of an AFL weekend would be the national aspect of it - all states are involved.

I don’t see that as a weakness.

I would play it after the season. Maybe two or three weeks after the GF. The AFL season ends far too early anyway, October is genuine footy weather.

It’s not the perfect time but no time is perfect… end of season is the best time to get player involvement as they’re not petrified of injury.

Every year would never work, you can’t disrupt players’ off seasons like that. But I think a one week commitment every three or four years would get them in.

Pay for it with TV money, pack out stadiums with cheap tickets and players would be up for it.

I initially thought a carnival in one city, but I think I’d actually play them in three different cities so there are guaranteed home crowds.

Send them into Origin camp at the start of the week to prepare, then play on the weekend.

No club coaches. They’ll just try to wreck the game and be too scared to give away their plans to opposition players in their own teams

Vic: Garry Lyon
SA: Kane Cornes
WA: John Worsfold
NSWACT: Lenny Hayes
QLDNT: Nathan Buckley
Tas: Alistair Lynch

With only a few days to prepare this would not be heavy stuff tactically, but a basic and a more freewheeling style of footy, a bit of a throwback.

Yes there’d be weak teams, but that’s how it goes… states change and improve, nobody would’ve predicted the quality of those NSW and Qld teams 15 years ago… you can get the closest possible games with 5v6, 3v4 and 1v2 and the chance to be promoted next carnival gives them something to play for. And if a team or two were really bad, it would shine a direct light on where game development needs to go.

For those who say it can’t happen… it will make financial sense and may even be a financial necessity in the near future. The reason is that the league, like most elite sports, is a slave to TV rights money. That’s what funds it and we no longer have the enormous automatic increases that we used to see. Sports need to innovate and add things to get networks to keep increasing the money. That’s why the constant talk of night grand finals and wildcard weekends, why new clubs are added (they can’t do that forever) to produce more games, why timeslots have all changed.

Sooner or later the league will need yet another lever to pull and this will be on the radar. Because everything aside, a weekend once every three or four years would rate its proverbial **** off. ALL OF US would watch it, don’t pretend you wouldn’t!

I’d go for it.
 
The thing is, even with these theoretical/'on paper' teams, you'd still need to cast a close eye at who would be the next 8-10 in line, because there's a very high probability that they'd be getting called up. And that's where Victoria's streets ahead right now: you'd barely notice if Daicos or Bontempelli couldn't play. And it's a bit jarring to see South Australia, they don't look much better than a middle-of-the-road AFL team, talent-wise.
 
How does Jake Waterman not get selected?
 
The thing is, even with these theoretical/'on paper' teams, you'd still need to cast a close eye at who would be the next 8-10 in line, because there's a very high probability that they'd be getting called up. And that's where Victoria's streets ahead right now: you'd barely notice if Daicos or Bontempelli couldn't play. And it's a bit jarring to see South Australia, they don't look much better than a middle-of-the-road AFL team, talent-wise.
That Tas line up would get flogged by North
 
That Tas line up would get flogged by North

Granted, but I feel as though it would have been the same story if you picked a Tasmania side when SOO was originally parked 25 years ago: they would have struggled against the wooden spooner. Assuming full availability, they probably would have had like 8-10 genuine quality 'would pretty much get a run in any AFL team' types: Richo, Lynch, Neitz, Paul Williams, Cresswell, the Febeys, Russell Robertson and then I'm struggling.
 
The thing is, even with these theoretical/'on paper' teams, you'd still need to cast a close eye at who would be the next 8-10 in line, because there's a very high probability that they'd be getting called up. And that's where Victoria's streets ahead right now: you'd barely notice if Daicos or Bontempelli couldn't play. And it's a bit jarring to see South Australia, they don't look much better than a middle-of-the-road AFL team, talent-wise.

Modern footy is all about the midfield as we know… Daicos Serong Petracca Walsh Merrett Bontempelli Butters Miller Rowell is insane. As you say you can take a couple out and they would still torch anybody.
 
The QLD/NT back 6 is amazing on paper.
FB: D.Zorko (QLD), S.May (NT), A.Aliir (QLD)
HB: K.Coleman (QLD), H.Andrews (QLD), D.Rioli (NT)

Very strong backline. Any team would have a hard time scoring against that back six, but unforunately the lack of high quality players in the midfield pulls QLD/NT down a fair bit and there would be far too many i50 entries for that back six to consistently stop. This will probably change over the next 5-10 years as we see more talented mids and forwards emerge from the northern academies and the NT. I'd personally like Queensland to have its own team but I can accept a composite team with the NT if it means State of Origin games would return.
 
FB: D.Zorko (QLD), S.May (NT), A.Aliir (QLD)
HB: K.Coleman (QLD), H.Andrews (QLD), D.Rioli (NT)

Very strong backline. Any team would have a hard time scoring against that back six, but unforunately the lack of high quality players in the midfield pulls QLD/NT down a fair bit and there would be far too many i50 entries for that back six to consistently stop. This will probably change over the next 5-10 years as we see more talented mids and forwards emerge from the northern academies and the NT. I'd personally like Queensland to have its own team but I can accept a composite team with the NT if it means State of Origin games would return.
Yes but Zorko back there seems a really strange choice!
Whats wrong with swapping Payne with Zorko and putting him in the midfield or even an up and comer like a Will Ashcroft or Jaspa Fletcher and pinch hitting Zorko off the interchange?

There is quite a bit of experience in this side but ignores a lot of young talent.
Would put Samson Ryan in the ruck over Braydon Preuss at least he's in some kind of form.
 

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