Who is TBA? He's what's wrong with Origin

Who is TBA? He's what's wrong with Origin

By Steve Mascord
June 28, 2005


COMMENT

It's time for an independant State of Origin commissioner to be appointed.

Yesterday's comeback for interstate football's most enigmatic player, TBA, was the final straw in a litany of decisions by NSW and Queensland over the years which ignored the entire concept of procedural fairness.

In case you missed it, Queensland decided they wanted to check out the form of a few players this weekend and they only named 16 men for next Wednesday's decider. Never mind that every other player involved in Origin III is stood down from club football this weekend!

State of Origin is a competition run by the competing teams and as such it is a conflict-of-interest disaster waiting to happen.

Next time a player like Andrew Johns needs a run before a representative match, TBA will get picked again unless this loophole is closed.

The same goes with the refereeing. We'll probably end up with the fourth of fth best official at Suncorp Stadium tomorrow week because the Blues and Maroons think they'll be disadvantaged with any one of the top three.

There are no rules in Origin until something so gormless, short sighted and stupid happens that they are reluctantly forced by public ridicule to make one up.

That's what happened with the violence that was silently sanctioned for so many years - we only had the NRL judicial code in Origin for the first time a couple of years ago.

The selection of the referee for Origin II and the final Queensland benchman for Origin III are enormous, shambolic embarassments to rugby league everywhere.

So let's spend some of that multi-million dollar gate money on appointing an experienced administrator, maybe from another sport, with no connection to either state.

Hopefully he'll have some idea of propriety, fairness and consistency. They are qualities our showpiece competition is sorely in need of right now.