State of Origin
Sport.I just realised how I may be able to explain to some Americans the rivalry that is State of Origin.
State of Origin is a best of three series held each year between the Australian states of New South Wales (where Sydney is) and Queensland (another state you don't care about).
The sport is rugby league. You can liken it somewhat to a game of American Football where you are only allowed to pass the ball laterally, ever. And instead of having offensive and defensive linemen square off nose-to-nose, everyone starts 10 meters apart, and you're only allowed to tackle/push/punch the guy with the ball. No blocking. Before you faint, I'll let you quietly mull over these concepts, and we'll let it stand at that for now.
Now that you are experts, imagine one team has been chosen to represent the Confederate South, and another the Union North, based on where they're actually from, not where they play now, so they feel it! It's North vs South, and they're playing for blood. Here, Queensland represents the Confederacy. Nationalist emotions are stirred up to remind hick Queenslanders how those arrogant New South Welshmen think they're better than us, but we fight for pride! A pride those big-city (Sydney) types would not, nay can not, understand!
So us Queenslanders tend to get more worked up about it. Similar to how the South still holds grudges against them Yankees...
This year, NSW won the first game 9-8 with an extra time field goal. Queensland won the second game 22-18 in regular time on Wednesday just gone. Three weeks till the decider in Sydney.
the earley edition - Posted by Dave @ 6/19/2004 05:03:00 pm || ||
