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Chapter 1: How do AFL and NRL fans perceive each other?
Look, the AFL have always looked down their nose at rugby league. They treat us as second class citizens. It's obvious we've got them rattled. And the figures and the facts speak for themselves.
We measure ourselves on traditional metrics like people turning up to games, people watching, how long they watch for. They can huff, they can puff, but they won't blow our house down. It's solid brick. We're going to get stronger and we're going to take some of their fans. There'll be plenty of those fans at the MCG tomorrow night. Hello, Vossie.
Yeah, you've got a big responsibility, everyone listening in Melbourne, to fly the Rugby League flag proudly in an Origin game number two at a venue Queensland has only won once, Gerard. New South Wales have the... We call it the wood, the wood over the maroons there at the MCG. You have said before, so Queensland will dominate the crowd, will they, Queensland fans?
I think so, yep. Unless you're a Sydney signer in Melbourne, the default position has usually, I don't want to speak for everybody, that the majority leans towards Queensland because of the affiliation with the Storm, but really because of our affiliation with Queensland.
Yeah, and realistically, you want to put a number on it? The actual crowd, you think 90-plus?
That's what we're being told. So just looking through our crowds this year, Vossie Anzac Day, 92,231 for Collingwood and Essendon, and the Scott Pendlebury record-breaking game, 90,028. There have been six crowds better than 80,000. And we just had the King's birthday, the big freeze game, 88,019 to remember Neil Danaher. So this will be a proper brag.
If you nail 90,000 plus, this is a proper brag.
Yeah, well, it's 32 years since we first went there. I was there on the night in 1994. It was game two of the series, first time at the MCG. Now, at the time, we didn't have the Olympic Stadium. Our biggest stadium in Sydney held a little over 40,000. Same could be said for the old Lang Park, which is now Suncorp Stadium. So we've had a player on today, former New South Wales legend Brad Clyde.
At the time, going to the MCG... You were playing it over double the crowd you had ever played at in your biggest match. Grand final was getting 40,000.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of the State of Origin Game 2 at the MCG?
Yeah. And suddenly you turn up and it was 87,000 back in 1994. It's a great occasion. Again, I say there's love in the room for you guys today. Dewar's proud, and I'm hoping, and I'm pretty confident you will, you'll get a better game than that game in 1994 because it was terrible. It was boring. It was a team that just had to grind out a win and square the series.
I don't think Queensland will grind in looking to square the series. In fact, I think given a reasonably dry night, you might get a lot of points.
All right, so I haven't checked the weather.
We had dry and a little bit of wind. No, I think you want to tell me that it could be anything.
I've got 95% chance of rain. Oh, dear. Oh, no, it's in the morning, so no, we'll be fine. Two mils of rain. And I do think the way game one finished, and we know what a television behemoth it is, and you know that a huge portion of that audience does come from Melbourne as the surge in ticket sales on the back of that to go. Yeah.
It's every bit as good as it looks as well as the Melbourne phenomenon is nothing draws a crowd like a crowd. The bigger, the prospect of the crowd, the more people go.
Yeah, well, I love that mentality and have always been envious of that fact. What you do have is superstars on show and to have the showdown of Nathan Cleary at the peak of his powers. We are talking modern day great. Off the back of winning Man of the Match in State of Origin number one, that was debatable, of course, but...
You know, he was there when the game was there on the line and he steered New South Wales to victory. So you have modern day great. You have Caelan Ponga coming back, having been set off in game one. He was on fire until he was set off. He was big in the first half. Cameron Munster now playing better football than he's played at any other stage this year. So he's primed for big performance.
Yeah, I think I'll stop short of absolutely guaranteeing a classic. But I think it's a game that potentially could have seesawing momentum throughout the game and a stack of points. So it could be one of the best Origin games in Melbourne.
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Chapter 3: How do crowd dynamics affect the State of Origin atmosphere?
I'll make this point. You love your stats, Gerard. Reece Walsh, who finished last year with the best individual performance in a grand final ever, then went over to England and starred for Australia first time out, 3-0 Ashes series win, has only won three matches this year. has only been a part of three. It's so stark.
Yeah, we don't know whether he's got a singing voice anymore because he doesn't sing a team song. So Walsh comes in seen as the potential match winner. but has struggled to win a match this year. There's a lovely little storyline there in the game. Really looking forward to it. SEN with coverage. We've got a Blues call. We've got a Maroons call. We've got a neutral call.
So we've got it all covered here on SEN.
Yeah, we love the biased calls to play them the next day. Probably even more so the losing call than the winning call. The winning call is nice and fun over the top, just to hear the despondency from the losing call teams.
Throw a question at you. So we've had the story around the referee, Ash Klein. He's the best referee we've got in the game. Most experienced. Another origin game for Ash. And then this story reaches the public domain on the weekend that he had a punting problem going back a number of years. Not just any little punting problem. In excess of $400,000 in losses.
We're told it was only the Racers and the Greyhounds. Now...
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Chapter 4: What are the historical highlights of State of Origin games at the MCG?
I will not apologise for taking this stance because the story was only revealed on the weekend. I would say, Ash, sit this one out. I just don't think I need it to be potentially in any narrative of anything controversial tomorrow night. I don't want there to be any joining of make-believe dots. I just don't want it to be there. I would take Ash out of the picture.
What would you do in this situation? He is unique to our sport. We haven't had this problem before.
I think he should take himself out of the game for the reasons of self-preservation. So a sport has to be so careful with its integrity. So we had an AFL umpire who was on the payroll of one of the betting agencies doing work on the races, never on the footy, that became intertwined in a tribunal case where he'd been abused by a Port Adelaide player, Zach Butters.
They couldn't find common ground, so they went to the tribunal. And part of the cross-examination was, are you overly sensitive towards the claims have been a quote, cheat, unquote, because of your affiliation with a gambling agency. So even the fact that that question is being asked in cross-examination means you have to be more careful with your own integrity than that.
Now, the funny ā well, not the funny part. The curious part of that is the AFL and the umpire both believed it was appropriate, and it was the betting agency ā That ended up stopping his involvement with them because they were the ones who recognized that having an AFL umpire on the books was actually doesn't pass muster. So I think there's an element of just recognize.
So these instances are in the past. I think it's a big choice for the code at the time to usher him through as an active referee during that reading it. Knowing that you have to be so careful with a sports integrity, I just think it's one of those moments in time. Just take a breath. Take a breath and sit out one game.
Yeah, well, then I'm in that camp. And this is not shooting Ash Klein down. He can come back. I just think the timing of the release of the story and the biggest game of the year so far on that stage, watched by millions. Yeah, exactly. Just have a little rest. Now, on sportsmanship, let's go into that.
We've had some great discussion this morning on our open line about do we cut any slack to elite sports people on the biggest stage in the biggest matches, e.g. Takiyah's players, you know, rip off, walk off, don't shake hands. Has there been any instance or any famous instances in AFL of bad sportsmanship, of just storming off? I can't think of one. It's just not the Australian way.
Gerard, can I put it that way?
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Chapter 5: How does weather impact the State of Origin match conditions?
We quickly hop onto a bus and we're absolutely all chips in.
We pick up where we left off, which I think is the most reassuring aspect. So we do. We follow the Socceroos and the Matildas as our national teams. I know you get to have the rugby league team represent, and that's great for the code. And the Wallabies at one stage were this team, but they got supplanted by the Socceroos a long time ago. Is the last time Australia played at...
at the World Cup in the knockout game. There was a full house in the early hours of a Saturday morning at Amy Park to watch on the big screen. And then we immediately pick up with them again when they play. And the fact that they do this in game one, just like that hypercharges. So 5 a.m. on a Saturday and midday on a Friday is if... I mean, Australia is going to be live in that third game.
The Friday lunchtime at the pub at the Square, I mean, that's going to be our quasi-long weekend right around the country. What a vibe that's going to be.
Trust me, your show ā are you on on a Friday? I was going to say, it'll fuse at 10 to midday. You'll go early to some music. From your observations of sport over many, many years, Gerard, we asked the question of our listener on Monday morning, was it...
the equal or maybe the best win by a national side in green and gold colours for the way it was, for the levels of character, spirit, the things we admire most, was it right up there with the best ever, if not the best? Do you go with it?
Yeah, I think the fact that you would put it on par with Kaja Schlouten, which occupies such a place in the imagination because of all that had gone before, all the years of agony of not qualifying,
the manner in which it was done coming from behind in the late spate of goals, and the fact that it was the pinnacle moment for a golden generation, for a set of players that were household names, that we would even consider something to be on the same step, told you everything you needed to know about Sunday. And it's the dawn of something new. We'd spoken around name identification.
It just wasn't. But it is now. One guy. It is now.
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Chapter 6: What are the predictions for player performances in the upcoming game?
Well, one other one for you, Gerard. Wildcard. Now, I am really starting to look into your ladder, and I haven't had a chance to throw it to our audience that ā You are the trailblazer here. Yeah. Because NRL, we've spoken about it and said, oh, no, I don't want that. No, no. But rewarding mediocrity.
But now it's starting to unfold real that you have teams that are, what, 40% win record, could be playing. If the comps stop right now, what, six and eight get you in the finals? Seven to ten, you are playing in at the pointy end of the season. Yeah.
Are people more for it or against now that they're starting to see with their own eyes how the table sits and what it may look like at the end of season proper?
It's excellent for dramatic effects and for lifting tension and for teams who would be out of business in the early weeks of winter have a purpose to chase. So we'll have to live through the whole season. I don't know what the actual games will look like at the end, but I do know what the chase for 10th looks like. So the Giants and St. Kilda played a game on Sunday, which was excellent.
It was terrifically entertaining, and it had something on the end of it because the winner was going to finish the round in 10th place. There was no mediocrity there. If that's the standard to chase one of these wildcard positions, it was great. So what it does, it gives you tension on... First and second is about home finals. Third and fourth is about the double chance.
You get to lose and then play the following week in post. Five and six is safe harbour. It's going to be so hard to win the premiership from below sixth. So you get the bye leading in, five and six, and you get to play a team who's played an extra game off no break. Seven and eight is about hosting your wildcard game and the advantage there. And nine and ten is the last refuge of the desperate.
The clawing from 11, 12, 13, 14 to participate, to be there at the end. And the other bit, which I think will reveal itself, is finishing 11th and 12th. If you've missed a 10, the reviews are going to be savage. You could be a really good team with a good record finishing ninth and go, gee, you're unlucky. If you finish 11th and miss 10, you go, my goodness.
Like, what a fail, especially if you're a team who is expected to play finals.
Gerard, I think you're winning over some disciples here. You sound like a disciple of the wildcard. But in principle, Gerard, the last answer I wanted, just the competition stops now. St Kilda's 10th, are they not? 6-8. Does 6-8 deserve to play any further?
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