Origin is where the best meets the best in Australian sport.
With so much talent on the field, the great moments inevitably follow, and with so much tension and emotion in the air, each try means that much more.
It's hard to whittle 40-odd years of Origin into just ten great tries, but here they are: our official (well, tweet me angry messages and I'll argue them back with you) history of the best tries in State of Origin.
Advert
READ MORE:
TEAM NEWS: QLD And NSW Name Their Teams For Game 2
TOP 10 ORIGIN BIFFS: Gallen Clocks Myles, The Infamous 'Cattledog' Call
MATCH REPORT: New South Wales Put Record 50 Points Past Queensland In State Of Origin Thrashing
Advert
Women's Origin is one of the best additions to Australian sport, and the most recent edition was one of the best ever. Queensland, led by superstar halfback Ali Brigginshaw and flying fullback Tamika Upton, wrested the Shield back from NSW after 4 consecutive victories for the Blues.
It was Upton who channelled peak Greg Inglis for one of Queensland's tries, catching a kick on the full, slicing through the New South Wales chasers and then stepping her counterpart in the 1 jersey to touch down. It was the first step on the way to a 24-18 victory for the Maroons.
Speaking of GI: you can't have a list of great Origin tries without one from Greg Inglis: the man has scored more of them than anyone else. The combination of Inglis, Thurston, Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk and Cameron Smith was all but unbeatable for the better part of a decade, with GI reaping the rewards with 18 touchdowns in Maroon.
Advert
This is probably the best of the lot, bringing the visceral strength and pace of Inglis to the fore. He takes a long pass from Thurston out wide in his own half, leaves James McManus in his wake and then does the classic inside and out move on Matt Gidley.
We mentioned this game in our 'Top 10 Biffs' article, in the context of Ray Price ripping the shirt of Chris Close's back just seconds in the game, with the pre-match fireworks still going off. The fight went down in Origin legend, but in the same game, there was one of the most iconic Origin tries.
Advert
There's moments of great skill in rugby league, and moments of great luck too: it's hard to see where this one falls. Wally Lewis will probably tell you that he aimed his chip kick at the crossbar, and if he did, he couldn't have hit it any better, as the ball pings back off the black stripe. Whether he meant it or not, the sight of the pill dropping to the most unlikely character, Greg Dowling, who barely ever scored in club football, to catch and slide over in the SCG mud is one that has lived long in the memory.
For many years, Wally Lewis was Mr Origin: the embodiment of the Queenslander spirit. That reputation was forged through his combination of talent and toughness, the two characteristics most needed to play Origin footy. His game-breaking try in Game 2 of 1989 showed all of that in one movement.
With QLD a game up and leading NSW in the second half, Lewis took the ball after a Blues error around half way. He went towards the line, threw the dummy and took off through the New South Wales left edge, pinning the ears back with the ball tucked up under the arm. A coterie of defenders tried to stop him, but only ended up being carried over the line as King Wally sealed the series in front of a packed Sydney Football Stadium.
Advert
2006 was the first year of the Queensland run that would see them collect ten of the next eleven series, and if there was one man who could be held up as the biggest contributor to that record-breaking period of dominance, Jonathan Thurston might be that man. He'd debuted in 2005 and kicked a vital field goal in his first game, but the Blues still managed to take home the series.
In Game 1 of 2006, the Blues had won with a Brett Finch field goal, before the Maroons levelled things up with a crushing win in Brisbane. At half-time of Game 3 in Melbourne, it looked like New South Wales might be back on top: only for Thurston to break the game wide open. Well back in his own half, the halfback took on the line, stepped through and raced into the backfield. He managed to find Brent Tate with a pass and the Broncos centre did the rest, sprinting 60m to score behind the posts.
There was only one game in the inaugural 1980 series played under Origin rules, but what a game it was. We've already covered the huge fight that made everyone realise that, yes, this was going to be a little different to the previous series, but the try that sealed the result is less remembered. I'd say unfairly so: Chris Close's effort was certainly worth looking up 41 years later.
The Redcliffe Dolphins centre, one of the remaining Brisbane comp players in the team, sliced through the Blues line after offloads from Mal Meninga and Artie Beetson, and you can't ask for a better set up than that. Close would go on to be named man of the match in the first ever game, with this try in the second half proving decisive in the end.
4 - Allan Langer, 2001
After copping a record beating in 2000, Queensland were facing down another series defeat in 2001 after losing Game 2 by a lop-sided margin in Sydney. In need of inspiration, coach Wayne Bennett had to think outside the box: in fact, he had to think about the other side of the world. 90s talisman Allan Langer had been in Super League for a year with Warrington - growing up in the UK, I was in awe of him - and, searching for leadership, the Maroons coach called him up.
Langer boarded a flight under a fake name, managed to get himself to Brisbane and inspired a Queensland victory with two try assists in the first half and a typically gutsy try to seal the victory in the second. Sometimes Origin stories seem preordained, and the little master coming back at the age of 35 to win the series for his state is among the best of them.
In 2000, New South Wales had lost the previous two series. They would lose the next two as well. But for one year, it all came together. Until last week, there had never been a wider margin of victory for the Blues, and capping that off was this amazing effort from Matt Gidley. Well, I say Matt Gidley: while he was the man to put the ball down in the corner, this was all about Andrew Johns.
Joey had the ball on the left, with Queensland backpedalling, managed to keep it alive, only the resurface later in the play in the middle and eventually on the far right hand side of the field to make the pass that got the ball to Gidley. Perhaps most amazingly, Johns was wearing the 14 jumper, having come off the bench.
2 - Mark Coyne, 1994
The 1994 State of Origin series might well be the greatest ever, with the best lineup for either side. 1994's season is a high watermark across Australia, cruelly ripped asunder by the oncoming Super League War, and the rep part of it featured a galaxy of stars: Langer, Mal Meninga and the Walters brothers for Queensland, and a New South Wales backline that seems unmatched in history: Brasher, ET, Fittler, McGregor, Wishart, Daley, Stuart. OK, so it's the first series I can remember and therefore gets a huge nostalgia boost, but still: who's arguing with me on this one?
With those players on show, it was the classic Origin matchup, in that the stars and glamour of New South Wales clashed with the rugged talent of Queensland. The try that sealed Game 1 for the Maroons showed their ability to keep going, to overcome the odds and to pull victory from the jaws of defeat - as well as their supreme skill. The ball goes from one side to the other, through innumerable pairs of hands, and seems like it might end at any point: until Mark Coyne wriggles under a bevy of tacklers to score. As Ray Warren called it on the commentary: "That's not a try - that's a miracle!"
1 - Billy Slater, 2004
If you don't know this one, then you're not an Origin fan. Seriously. Go watch AFL or something. This tops our list because it takes in both context and skill: it was an outrageous passage of play, but also one that marked Origin for the better part of a decade afterwards, will Billy Slater emerging as a predominant figure in the series.
It featured Darren Lockyer kicking early for Slater, who cleanly collected, went to the right, angled back in his trademark style and then chipped again for himself to race through and score. It was everything we love to see about rugby league, a move straight out of the backyard and probably against all coach's recommendations: but it worked, and on the biggest stage of them all in Aussie rugby league.
Featured Image Credit: NRL/QRLTopics: Rugby League, nrl, try