The old boys think rugby league rules shouldn’t apply to Origin. Are they right? |
The old boys think rugby league rules shouldn’t apply to Origin. Are they right?
May 29, 2026 — 11:45am
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Any good episode of serial entertainment, whether it’s your favourite bingeable drama or podcast or some reality show like Survivor or the US presidency, should leave a hook. A cliffhanger, a mystery, an unresolved grudge, it doesn’t matter – unfinished business is good for business.
Being a serial drama, Origin I served its purpose. The send-off of Kalyn Ponga was, and will be, heavily debated. Its effect on the match, gifting NSW a numerical advantage for the final 23 minutes, left a sense that the better team didn’t win. Perfect scriptwriting. Tune in next week.
It’s ironic, then, that the match officials who thought they were upholding the letter of the law, for the sake of integrity and brain health and other high motives, who should not have a single obligation to entertain, have acted in the interests of the entertainment industry.
They’ve given Queensland their grievance, again. They’ve left the old boys of league unhappy. The question of interstate sporting supremacy has been left unsettled. Origin 2026 has the vexation it demands. As the loser always says in the boxing ring, that ultimate grey area between sport and entertainment: I demand a rematch!
Referee Ashley Klein’s decision to send Ponga off rather than to the sin bin has been argued both ways. There was a measure of subjectivity to how hard Ponga hit Tolu Koula, what part of his body hit him, and how much duty of care he applied.
But watching the faces of the Origin veterans after the game – NSW partisans as much as Queenslanders – you could see something else at play.
It was not........