Origin only works when it means something. Just ask a Queenslander!

State of Origin was born in our game of Australian Rules football, but there is no doubting rugby league is the sport that figured out how to make it matter.

“If the players don't desperately want to represent their state, Origin doesn't work.”

That was the first thing Billy Moore told me when I called him to ask whether Saturday night's return of AFL State of Origin, with Western Australia taking on Victoria, can actually matter.

Moore would know. Queensland Maroons Origin royalty. Seventeen Origins. 211 games for the North Sydney Bears. And the man who screamed “Queenslander!” in the tunnel during the famous Neville Nobodies 1995 series, a moment that still defines what Origin means to rugby league fans.

These days, he also has a genuine soft spot for Western Australia. With his beloved North Sydney Bears returning to the NRL through Perth as the Perth Bears next year, he is watching the WA sporting landscape closely.

The new club will be coached by fellow Queensland icon Mal Meninga, another man synonymous with Origin identity and what it means to represent where you are from.

“Supporters get Origin as long as the players really want to play,” Moore told Zero Hanger. “If the players buy in, the supporters are buying.”

Before you even get to the field, something about this week already feels slightly off.

One glance at the Victorian jumper being worn for this return of Origin and you notice it straight away. Western Australia is a Victorian sponsor. Maybe it is just sponsorship. Perhaps it means nothing.

But Origin has never been about “just” anything. It has always been about identity. And when something around Origin feels slightly off culturally, fans pick up on it quickly.

“State of Origin is built on one idea. Mate against mate. State against state. Not as a slogan. As reality,” Moore said.

“Club teammates spend 10 months trying to win together, then for three nights a year they line up across from each other and try to beat each other because where you come from matters more than who you play for.”

That is why rugby league Origin is not just a representative series. It is the biggest thing the sport produces. An annual three-game series between Queensland and New South Wales that stops two states every winter.

It is a cliché, but the idea of mate against mate, state against state sticks with me.

Because I was born in Victoria. I grew up in Melbourne. I lived there for 28 years. I still identify as a proud Victorian. EJ Whitten yelling “Stuck it right up ‘em,” is my equivalent of Billy Moore screaming “QUEENSLANDER”

But I have lived in Queensland as another ex-pat Victorian, Brisbane to be specific, for more than eight years, and I have seen what Origin actually looks like when a sport gets this right.

Origin week here is not nostalgia. It is not content. It is not something people politely clap along to.

It takes over the state.

And watching that as someone who is a purebred AFL footy nuffy, it is still staggering that our game invented State of Origin, Western Australia of all places, back in 1977, and then slowly let it drift away as club football became more powerful.

Now the AFL is having a crack at bringing it back for the first time in 26 years this weekend with the WA v Victoria clash at Optus Stadium this Saturday night, and if I am honest, I am not convinced the AFL fully gets it yet.

Because Origin is not something you can half-build. Fans can smell that instantly.

Watching the early build-up to this return, there are small warning signs. Nothing catastrophic. But enough to make you wonder if everyone involved truly understands what they are trying to recreate.

Because if the AFL is serious about bringing Origin back, it has to be honest about what mate against mate actually looks like.

If it comes down to it, are Victorian captain Marcus Bontempelli and teammate Ed Richards prepared to genuinely go at Bulldogs teammates Aaron Naughton and Tim English if they are wearing Western Australia jumpers?

Not dirty.

Not reckless.

But real.

Because fans can tell instantly if players are holding back, and while some are talking up how seriously they will take it, Moore says it all comes down to the pub test.

“You need people to see these blokes are serious.”

Moore sees Western Australia as having the potential to be the Queensland of this story. Part of that comes from what he is seeing built in Perth through his beloved Bears joining the NRL.

“Western Australia can absolutely be the Queensland of this. Proud, a bit outside the centre of power, and desperate to prove something. That's where Origin lives.”

There is history in that idea.

Queensland did not build Origin through marketing or nostalgia. They built it by deciding it mattered more. By turning underdog energy into identity. By beating the establishment often enough that belief became culture.

Western Australia understands that mentality. It always has. And with the Bears returning through Perth, Moore sees how strong a sporting identity already runs there.

And this is where I will say something that genuinely pains me as a Victorian.

For this version of Origin to truly work, Western Australia probably needs to take it more seriously than Victoria early on.

History says that matters.

Western Australia beating Victoria in the first Origin game in 1977 mattered. Queensland winning the first Origin format match in rugby league in 1980 mattered even more.

Those wins did not just decide games. They created belief.

Origin has never been built by the establishment deciding it was important.

It has always been built by the outsider deciding it was everything.

Moore believes the hardest part is not talent. It is belief.

“That Queensland identity isn't something you can fake. If WA build their own version of that, Origin will work.”

And that is the real test.

Whether Western Australia or Victoria and any other states that want a slice of the action decide this is something worth building.

Because if they do, history suggests the rest of the competition will have to catch up.

And here is the uncomfortable truth.

For Origin to truly work again in the AFL, something the league would never script probably needs to happen on the field.

Moments where club teammates go at each other and mean it. Moments where players show that, for one night, state actually comes first.

Because once fans see that, you do not need marketing.

Origin sells itself.

Broadcasters will try to build the emotion. There is already a Channel 7 promo running with Luke Hodge talking about feeling incomplete because he never played Origin for Victoria.

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Perhaps 'Hodgey's dialogue in the promo is sincere, but Origin has always been built on something bigger than sincerity.

Channel Nine's Origin coverage famously had Phil Gould standing in front of cameras before kick-off explaining why it mattered. Not analysing it. Making you feel like something bigger than sport was about to happen.

Moore put it simply when talking about Western Australia and why this can work, separating club allegiance from state identity.

“He's not West Coast. He's not Freo. He's one of us. He's Western Australian.”

And as Moore said:

“If the players believe they are representing their people, not just playing another game, Origin will work.”

Rugby league has not kept Origin alive by accident. It has spent more than 45 years refining the recipe.

The AFL has the recipe sitting right in front of it.

Now it just has to cook it properly.

Because if it does not, this whole thing will be cooked.