A viable way to bring back state of origin? | Thebigtip

 Over the years, the AFL has learnt and adopted many practices from the NFL. Most have had a positive impact on the game, whilst others, like free agency, have been shunned by footy purists. With AFL state of origin having been dead for over a decade and with the Rugby League version being a ratings bonanza, perhaps there is another practice we can borrow from our friends in the USA to resurrect this 'dead but not buried' version of the game.

To give a brief history, the NFL was created when two leagues, namely the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference merged to create a national version of the game, much in the same way the AFL was somewhat created by merging the teams or talent from the VFL, SANFL and the WAFL. Every year the champions of each league play off in the Super Bowl. However, the week before the Super Bowl the two conferences nominate their best players who are not competing in the Super Bowl to join forces and battle it out against each other for bragging rights.

Perhaps the biggest problem originally faced by the AFL was that there were too many states involved to allow the tournament to be quick and easy, originally having an entire playoff series to determine the dominant state, but the emergence of the 'All Stars', a team made up of all the non-Victorian players has created the solution to that problem.

How great would it be, if the week before the Grand Final we got to watch Juddy pick up the ball, handball it to Swanny who pops a floater into the forward line that was marked by Buddy who then kicks a goal (providing of course that Carlton, Collingwood and Hawthorn were not playing in the Grand Final). 

There is an issue created by adopting this game which is that there are already many people complaining that the season is too long to begin with without adding another week to the fixture. Perhaps this could be addressed by playing the game game midweek before the grand final, which admittedly only gives players from the losing preliminary finals teams a few days to rest, but considering they will have the entire off-season to recover and will make a pretty penny in the process I'm sure theyll be able to get themselves up for the occasion. 

Being Victorian I have a lot of pride knowing that we invented this beautiful game that is no doubt the best game in the world. And I'm equally as confident that people from any other state would love nothing more than to dent that pride by giving a royal flogging to the Victorian team.

This would also be great as it would give us something decent to watch midweek before the grand final that's not a talk show. My only request would be that the team made up of non Victorians not be called the 'all stars' as it is a little bit tacky and reminiscent of the 1980's. Comment below for better ideas for team names.