Were Paul Gallen to be available and selected for Origin III on July 13, he would be accused of selfishness, placing his own farewell above the necessary and overdue regeneration of his team. He has already been accused of such, having announced that this will be his last year of Origin football before the series even started. But that is nothing beside the selfishness of the game's rulers and broadcasters in allowing a third game to go ahead.
In other sports, dead rubbers are only played in exceptional circumstances. Once the seven-game finals series of the World Series and the National Basketball Association are decided, the series is over. When Australia hosted one-day cricket finals series, likewise. Dead rubbers in Davis Cup are contested as exhibition matches, if at all. Matchplay in golf, and sudden-death play-offs, finish when someone has won. The exceptions are made for cumbersome international tours (such as Saturday night's dead third rugby Test) because it would be a logistical nightmare, not to mention unfair to supporters' groups on expensive tours, to cancel fixtures, and because Test matches – in whatever sport – have an inherent status giving each a certain gravitas; no rubber is fully "dead".
Why, then, is Origin III being played? What exactly is the point? For Queenslanders, another clean sweep? As far as I can see, 2-0 is as clean as a series can be swept. The series is over, Queensland have won, and should have been awarded their trophy in the moment of triumph, in front of their fans.
For NSW, is Origin III a chance at redemption or rebuilding? As for redemption, if the Blues win in Sydney, whoopee-doo. As redemptive as all those fifth cricket Tests England used to win. As for rebuilding, you can't change a tyre on a moving wheel. Laurie Daley brings in some new players. They gain Origin exposure (albeit in a meaningless fixture, so not real Origin exposure). They lose or they win. Next year, a new coach and selectors have different ideas. Nothing has been rebuilt; instead there is only a continuation of the ad hoc decisions made in panic that have characterised the Blues for the past decade.
Redemption for Michael "Neville Glover" Jennings? What does Parramatta do to these players? It's true that but for the 24 points he cost (12 in defence, 12 by bombing two tries), Jennings had a capable game in Brisbane; but then that's a bit like the statement, "A quick three tries before half-time and the Blues can be right back in this". So very NSW. Jennings can't be redeemed until he plays in a winning series, which ain't going to happen in Sydney.
To what lengths will we in the media have to go to manufacture interest for this match? It was hard enough for Origin II; even journalists couldn't pretend the game was more intriguing than trying to locate Semi Radradra. To be fair, Origin II was a rare and possibly unique instance of an Origin game exceeding the hype, but the series was still alive then. And once it was over, analysis of the result was rinse-and-repeat: NSW won every metre but the hundredth; NSW won the battle everywhere but the scoreboard; NSW out-enthused Queensland; NSW showed infinite promise for the future; NSW lost.
Behind that, too, is a looming shadow. Queensland's strengths are its playmakers. Who, after Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk, Johnathan Thurston and Darius Boyd, are the next best playmakers in the NRL? You have to go through Michael Morgan, Anthony Milford, Ben Hunt, Jake Granville, Jake Friend, Ben Barba, Cameron Munster, Daly Cherry-Evans, Andrew McCullough, Corey Norman and Moses Mbye (plus the injured Billy Slater) before you get to the best NSW can offer. And then, only if you ignore the Kiwis. Waiting for the cycle to turn will be like waiting to get run over again. Why is rugby league's biggest state not producing top-ranked halfbacks, hookers and fullbacks? That is a bigger "structural" question than who should be Origin coach.
We know that the reason Origin III will go ahead is television. Three million people, including me, will watch it. But 3 million will watch The Voice this week, 3 million will post something on Twitter, and 2 million will vote for the National Party. Just because millions do it doesn't mean it has any point.
Television will try to work it up into something, as it's their rights deal that necessitates the match going ahead (and by the way, how much discussion was there in said deal about an optional third Origin match? Zero. So much for the game controlling its own destiny.) But the networks are also complicit in Origin cannibalising their own product. The dead patch that the NRL competition goes into over the Origin period is akin to a midwinter depression, which is a shame, because the comp has been very entertaining this year. And the NRL is what's important, not Origin. So why continue to go through the motions for another three weeks?
Persisting with a dead Origin game exposes the hypocrisy of concerns for "player welfare". Gallen went within centimetres of ending his Origin career in Brisbane, very much not on his own terms, perhaps in a wheelchair. As we know, serious injury is a risk league players run every week. But at least premiership games have something at stake. Origin has a ferocity that demonstrably hurts more players, long term, than any other games. So why put the players at such hazard for a meaningless match? Why hurt their clubs and their supporters further? Will Origin III have been worth it if Thurston, Boyd, Smith or James Maloney is injured for the season and the competition that really counts, the NRL premiership, is warped out of shape?
It would be nice to see the Rugby League Players' Association take a stand, even if it would be unpopular. Protect 34 of the best footballers in the NRL by saving them from this facsimile of a contest. Or perhaps the clubs can take it into their own hands, by ruling their players out with bogus injuries. They've managed to kill one meaningless representative fixture, City-Country, with this tactic. It might be time for them to kill another.
