Soem

When Innisfail teenager Kerry Boustead signed with Eastern Suburbs in 1979 it was viewed by most as the inevitable progression for a young player aiming to make a career out of rugby league. But from a wider perspective the signing had massive ramifications. As revealed in A Centenary of Rugby League, 1908-2008, Boustead’s switch was the final straw for QRL boss Ron McAuliffe, who was desperate to restore Queensland’s battered rugby league pride. The following is an edited excerpt from the outstanding history compiled for the game’s Centenary by David Middleton and Ian Heads:

It was not immediately apparent but the defection of Queensland’s rising Test star Kerry Boustead to Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs in 1979 proved to be a crucial turning point in interstate rugby league. Maroon supporters were fed up with the annual migration of their most talented players to Sydney clubs and with Boustead’s signature and the increasing likelihood that emerging talents such as Souths’ Mal Meninga and the Valleys’ pair Wally Lewis and Chris Close would also head south, the calls for change became deafening.

QRL president Ron McAuliffe employed two leading barristers to investigate the re-introduction of a transfer payments system, despite the fact that such a system had been ruled by the courts to be a restraint of trade. “Why should we spend thousands on coaching schemes only to see the finished product snapped up by a Sydney club without reimbursement?” McAuliffe asked.

The QRL eventually settled on a contract system for representative players at senior and under-18 levels but it was apparent that this was merely a band-aid solution to a far greater problem. Queensland were overwhelmed in the interstate series, beaten by a NSW team that included expatriate Queenslanders Boustead, Rod Reddy and Rod Morris. “Being beaten is bad enough,” The Australian’s Brisbane-based journalist Hugh Lunn once wrote. “But being beaten by your own men has a ring of betrayal about it.” The Courier Mail’s Lawrie Kavanagh summed up the disenchantment among Queensland supporters. “They are getting sick and tired of hearing and reading about Queensland losing its best players to Sydney year in and year out. Even the most ardent Queensland supporter is accepting the fact that Queensland is not in a position to beat NSW under the present one-way traffic to Sydney. A major suggestion now is a state of origin series”.

Of course, the idea of State of Origin had been floated before – as early as 1964 by former Test centre Jack Reardon in the Courier Mail after NSW had swept that year’s series. But by 1979 perhaps of even more concern than the disenchantment of Queensland supporters was the growing antipathy of NSW supporters towards interstate football. The shift to suburban Leichhardt Oval in 1978 had been indicative of the shrinking public appeal; a season later only 4,502 bothered to attend Sydney’s only interstate game.
 
Excerpt from: A Centenary of Rugby League, 1908-2008 – The Definitive Story of the Game in Australia, by Ian Heads and David Middleton. Published by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd.