This week marks the end of "State of Origin", a rugby league thingy that we've been loosely following. The most interesting part for me is the rivalry between Queensland and New South Wales. It's not unlike the Sens and Leafs business, and the colours are even kind of similar. QLD is maroon, NSW is blue.

The State of Origin is an annual best-of-three series of rugby league football matches between the Maroons, representing the state of Queensland, and the Blues, representing the state of New South Wales. The State of Origin series is one of Australia's and the region's premier sporting events, attracting a huge television audience and usually selling out the stadiums in which the games are played^[1]. State of Origin football is frequently cited as being the highest-level of rugby league played anywhere in the world, despite the existence of international tournaments and it being a domestic competition^[2][3][4].

Players are selected to play for the state in which they played their first senior football, hence the name 'state of origin'. Prior to 1980 players were only selected for interstate matches on the basis of where they were playing their club football at the time. In both 1980 and 1981 there were two interstate matches under the old selection rules and one "State of Origin" match. From 1982 onwards a best-of-three match series has been played around the middle of the rugby league season. Since the inception of the series, total victories for each side are extraordinarily even.

Queensland has already won the first two games of the series, so this game is just...well, if Queensland wins again it's really embarrassing for NSW, and if NSW wins, it just doesn't matter! Muahahaha. The third match is actually in Brisbane so I predict that the city will be insane this Wednesday!