State of Origin began in Australian rules football on 8 October 1977 between Western Australia (WA) and Victoria, at Subiaco Oval in Perth, the initial brainchild of Leon Larkin.
It was devised to address the drift of most talented Australian rules players to the Victorian Football League (VFL) and the effect that this had on interstate matches.
A journalist known as "The Cynic" writing for a rugby football periodical called The Referee, suggested that Stephen Spragg, who had moved to Queensland, should be able to play for his state of birth, New South Wales.
The Australian rules experience was echoed, with Queenslanders showing enormous interest in the game at Lang Park, Brisbane, although NSW-based players and journalists described it as "the non-event of the century".
Queensland defeated New South Wales in that match, and State of Origin has grown into Australia's greatest sporting rivalry.
The Blues won that series, leading coach Jack Gibson to comment: "I thought they went pretty well for a bunch of cockroaches".
The respective scores of the two matches offered a persuasive argument, if such were needed, of the extent to which the VFL had denuded the WAFL of its elite talent:
[9] However, attendance and interest declined during the 1990s, due to a variety of factors, such as the VFL's ongoing conversion into a national club competition,[10] the Australian Football League (AFL).
The International Origin Match, held from 2011 to 2013, was more of an all-star game, as it pitted the England national team against Australian and New Zealand stars in the largely English-based Super League.