![\"AFL](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/f5d0409e98483050a415c871a3c9603c658de45c.jpg\")
Camera IconAFL State of Origin representatives arrive at Perth Airport. WA coach Dean Cox. Credit: Iain Gillespie\/The West Australian<\/p>\nWest Australian key defender Tom Barrass says Saturday\u2019s AFL Origin clash with Victoria at Optus Stadium won\u2019t be won and lost in the coach\u2019s box.<\/p>\n
The premiership Eagle, now plying his craft at Hawthorn, said the calibre of players on both teams would dictate the style of play in the first Origin game in more than a quarter of a century in front of a sell-out crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Coxy (WA coach Dean Cox) will have his hands off the wheel, to be honest,\u201d Barrass said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think with this calibre of players and such little preparation, it\u2019ll be a lot of common sense playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI imagine there\u2019ll be some structures and some philosophies around how we want to play as a team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really know if we\u2019d tag anyone, but who are you picking to tag, right?<\/p>\n
\u201cLike, there\u2019s, there\u2019s guns everywhere on both sides. So I think the brand of footy will probably be a bit more simple, a bit more contested, probably a finals type style of footy, like it is when you have this many good players on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two squads assembled for the first time on Wednesday night after the bulk of the Victorian players and a handful of West Australians arrived at Perth Airport.<\/p>\n
Barrass joined the Hawks for the start of last season after 10 years as a West Coast player.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a very proud West Australian. It hurt me a lot to leave, and I\u2019ve loved my time in Victoria, but to be able to come back here with my kids, share this experience … it\u2019s an honour to be able to represent Western Australia as a footballer, like I did at 18, play with some of my mates who we\u2019ve not played together for 12 or 13 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was most looking forward to reuniting with WA 18s teammates Darcy Cameron (Collingwood) and dual Brownlow medallist and WA captain Patrick Cripps (Carlton).<\/p>\n
He tipped Cameron would be a handful for Victorian ruckman Max Gawn.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t wait to play with my boy, Darcy Cameron, who\u2019s going to give Maxi a touch up and Paddy Cripps as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Camera IconAFL State of Origin representatives arrive at Perth Airport. WA coach Dean Cox. Credit: Iain Gillespie\/The West Australian<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played together under 18s and I\u2019ve admired those guys and the way they\u2019ve gone about it. We\u2019ve lived on opposite sides of the country for a long time, so I think it\u2019s great to play with my friends, but I\u2019ve admired all the players that have made both the terms for a long time, and so it\u2019s just gonna be great to get out there and strap the boots on and compete. \u201c<\/p>\n
Silken Sydney speedster Chad Warner was similarly excited about playing alongside old WA junior teammates Trent Rivers (Melbourne), Luke Jackson (Fremantle) and Mitch Georgiades.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very keen to play with them again and hopefully hit Mitch up a few times in the forward line,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Australian key defender Tom Barrass says Saturday\u2019s AFL Origin clash with Victoria at Optus Stadium won\u2019t be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,49082,64,63,55,639,588,85],"class_list":["post-472824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-afl-state-of-origin","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472824","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=472824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}