The first fixture of 2024’s State of Origin series last night effectively ended after less than eight minutes of play. Joseph-Aukuso Sua’ali’i, the 20-year-old NRL prodigy turned prodigal son, flew out of the line and hit star Maroons fullback Reece Walsh flush in the head with his shoulder. As Walsh lay on the ground, referee Ashley Klein pointed up the tunnel, Blues captain Jake Trbojevic gawped like a bumpkin at the county fair, and months of the annual regulation hype otherwise known as “Origin fever” fell in a heap.
Besides his likely suspension for up to four weeks, Sua’ali’i’s punishment for ruining everyone’s fun is only just beginning. The sports pages of today’s Sydney and Brisbane papers are making hay out of his apology on Instagram, the reactions from fans on social media, and the implications of his sending off for the rest of the series and the wider game.
“Sua’ali’i’s reckless tackle on Walsh was rugby league at its worst,” wrote Courier Mail columnist Robert Craddock. “The mood in NSW before the match had a feverish ‘get Walsh’ [quality] about it with Benny Elias and Mark Carroll labelling Walsh a lair and a series of stories published in the build-up about the Blues plan ‘to terrorise’ the flashy fullback.”
Characteristically, the News Corp papers have been quiet on any role they might have played in stoking “Origin fever” to the point of self-sabotage. Craddock didn’t mention that those quotes from the former Blues enforcers were carried by the Daily Telegraph – the Courier Mail’s sister News Corp outlet in Sydney – on its Wednesday front page in the game’s lead-up. “Let’s bury the pretty boy” the headline read. Carroll went on to say how he’d love to “get my hands” on Walsh. “His beautiful blue eyes would be spinning.”
The back page of Thursday’s Telegraph carried a lurid photo of a barely-conscious Walsh after the hit. “It’s a knockout,” the headline read.
The NRL regards Origin, along with the finals, as its best opportunity to showcase the game to casual watchers and would-be fans in the AFL states. As such, the NRL’s unofficial directive to Origin referees has been to leave the whistle in the back pocket so the players can best show off their skills, speed, strength – and, in Origin’s case, aggression – without the game getting bogged down by penalties and stoppages.
Origin is the most blatant example of the NRL and its media partners having a bet each way, but it permeates through the rest of the rugby league calendar. Fans are told that the NRL takes concussion extremely seriously and that player safety is their highest priority, while barely a week goes by without another News Corp headline or Fox Sports roundtable screaming about how the game’s gone soft.
In today’s edition of its daily Footy Fever email newsletter, the Telegraph went from bemoaning that the hit on Walsh was “ghastly from all angles” to treating its readers to a list of “the top 10 Origin fights of all time” in celebration of “a time when men were men and Origin meant biff”.
The Sua’ali’i debacle shows this strategy may have passed its use-by date. As the game becomes faster and more physical, the skyrocketing player injury toll is sidelining more and more of the game’s most bankable stars. Rising public awareness of how chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is affecting rugby league greats like Wally Lewis is starting to jar with Origin’s mandatory blood-and-thunder rhetoric. Footage of Walsh reeling on the ground might have played well with NSW diehards and old-fashioned hardheads, but it will hardly endear the game to parents whose sons and daughters the NRL needs to coax into its pathways to keep the game alive.
These are serious issues that the game will sooner or later have to come to grips with. But if this week’s reporting is any indication, there’s little sign that rugby league’s media class is willing to ask what role it plays in creating or worsening these problems.
Alex McKinnon is a freelance writer
