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Paul Field remains the only man in State of Origin history to have never played an ARL\/NRL game. Photo: Supplied.<\/p>\n
State of Origin is the pinnacle of rugby league in Australia.<\/p>\n
The best of the best from NSW and Queensland battle it out for 12 months of bragging rights over their clubmates. So you would expect someone chosen for the illustrious honour to have been hand-picked from the top competition in the country \u2013 the National Rugby League (NRL) or its state-based predecessor the NSWRL, or the QRL.<\/p>\n
This wasn\u2019t the case for Cootamundra legend Paul Field, who was chosen for the NSW representative team with no professional games in the NSWRL under his belt. He remains the only player, among the nearly 500 who have appeared in State of Origin since 1980, to have never played premiership football in the Sydney or Brisbane first-grade competitions.<\/p>\n
The Coota hooker found his way into the squad through an alternative route that would not be possible today, but it does not stop his journey from being any less incredible.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack when I played in the \u201980s, the City vs Country format was a lot more prevalent,\u201d Field said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was chosen to play for the Country teams a couple of years in a row. In 1983, I must have done something right because I was picked to come train with the NSW squad.<\/p>\n
\u201dMyself and my good mate Neville Owen were chosen to go on the camp. He was playing for Lakes United up at Newcastle at the time, but it was nice to have another boy from the bush come up with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
City vs Country, also known as City vs Country Origin in later years, was a singular representative match that ran annually from 1928 to 2017 in the lead-up to State of Origin. It saw the best players from Sydney-based teams (City) take on the rest of the state\u2019s best players (Country).<\/p>\n
Field said that without the opportunity to play in City vs Country, which has since dissolved, he would not have been chosen to play in the NSW State of Origin squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeville and I went down to training for about a week. I still remember the buzz of just going on that camp,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bit after that, between the first and second game, I was playing a game for the Cootamundra Bulldogs [his local side], and shortly afterwards I found out I was selected for Game 2 of Origin [in 1983].<\/p>\n
\u201cI got a phone call from a journalist in the local hotel. In those days, we didn\u2019t really have mobiles and all that sort of thing. So I actually hung up on him. I thought it was one of my mates pretending to be a coach, having a go at me, because I\u2019ve been in the training squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took two phone calls before I realised that I was actually talking to a journalist from Sydney.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Paul Field (middle, third from the right) next to his good mate Les Boyd, representing the Country squad in 1983. Photo: Cootamundra Rugby League Football Club.<\/p>\n
While Field believed the first crowd he played in front of in Sydney was massive, he said the roar at Lang Park (now Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane) was unlike anything he had ever experienced.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second game I played, which was Game 3 of that series, up at Lang Park was probably the biggest crowd I played in front of,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSydney was good too, but Lang Park was a whole different beast.\u201d<\/p>\n
Field\u2019s record representing NSW sits split at one win and one loss.<\/p>\n
In his first game, the Blues narrowly defeated Queensland 10-6, while his second match was a little more one-sided, going down 43-22 to the Maroons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was certainly over the moon with getting selected, especially coming from the bush,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably the greatest moment I\u2019ve had in terms of sporting. I\u2019ve done a lot of good things over my time, but playing in Origin is certainly at the top of that list.\u201d<\/p>\n
He remains a massive rugby league fan, serving his beloved Cootamundra Bulldogs to this day.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the biggest highlights of my playing career for me was representing Cootamundra in the City to Country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember playing with a great friend of mine, Les Boyd [another famous Cootamundra player, who played eight games for NSW, 75 for the Manly Sea Eagles and 17 for the Australian Kangaroos].<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying with Les in that Country side was a huge highlight and one of my favourite moments of my life. Unfortunately, I don\u2019t think the City vs Country format will ever return.<\/p>\n
\u201dKids who are 15, 16 and older are going to Sydney or Canberra to play. I just don\u2019t see them resurrecting it, which is a huge shame because it was a big honour for some of us bush kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the NSW Blues getting the wood over Queensland in last week\u2019s opener for the 2025 series in Brisbane, Field is cautiously optimistic his old squad can get the job done this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we [NSW] can get much better, but I\u2019m sure Queensland can play a lot better too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like nothing more than to wrap it up in Game 2 across at Perth, but both teams are very good and it can change very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The retired league star can be found watching his Coota Bulldogs play at Les Boyd Oval most weekends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Field remains the only man in State of Origin history to have never played an ARL\/NRL game.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-189766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}