sceptics like myself<\/a> acknowledge what a success this game was. I thought it would be an exhibition game. But this was no kick and giggle. The players asked for it. They said all the right words. And they backed it up.<\/p>\nThe evidence was in all the little things you look for in a normal home and away season. It was the way defenders hurled themselves back into packs. It was the ferocity in which midfielders attacked contests. It was the way exhausted and cramping players were still mowing down their opponents in the final term.<\/p>\n
Western Australia\u2019s Mitch Georgiades chases down Victoria ball-magnet Nick Daicos during the 2026 AFL State of Origin clash. Photograph: Paul Kane\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Nick Daicos was booed every time he touched the ball, which was a bit rough for a bloke who\u2019d been shilling for Tourism WA for the past three days. But Lachie Ash, probably the most anonymous of the Victorian players, was a good choice as the EJ Whitten medallist.<\/p>\n
The announcement of Ash\u2019s honour was met with bewilderment online and inside Optus Stadium, but his long kicks opened up the Sandgropers all night. Besides, the voting panel of Chris Scott, Sam Mitchell and Garry Lyon was reasonably well placed to determine who their most influential player was. And it was good, for a change, that the player with the most touches didn\u2019t automatically win a medal.<\/p>\n
It was a terrific contest. But the game was always going to be loaded with risk. The vision of a chalk-white Mark Keane slapping his leg back together would have been in the back of every player\u2019s mind. Even worse was the serious knee injury to GWS midfielder Tom Green just 24 hours earlier. Lyon, in his ambassadorial role, said injuries can happen anywhere, at any time. Look at Will Day, he said. But the Hawthorn star injured himself in a club program, with a long-term goal in mind, and every Hawks supporter understood that.<\/p>\n
Victoria\u2019s Jacob Weitering hits the turf as AFL State of Origin returns with a clash against Western Australia. Photograph: Daniel Carson\/AFL Photos\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Carlton fans probably took a little more convincing when Jacob Weitering was in a neck brace. He injured himself in an act that personified the intensity of Saturday\u2019s game, lunging a little bit more desperately than he would have in an intraclub game, and feeling the full tonnage of two large men. \u201cThat\u2019ll squeeze the juice out of you,\u201d commentator Brian Taylor squawked.<\/p>\n
Taylor has considerable history when it comes to misdiagnosis and every time he said \u201cit\u2019s just precautionary\u201d, I added another month to the amount of time Weitering would be missing. Indeed, there was plenty to be precautionary about \u2013 the neck, the brain, the spine, the shoulder, the ribs.<\/p>\n
There was a lot of footballing flash on display on Saturday night but there\u2019s nothing flashy about Weitering. In terms of structure and basic competence, he\u2019s just about the Blues\u2019 most important player. And there\u2019s not a lot of Geoff Southbys, Bruce Doulls and Stephen Silvagnis waiting to replace him.<\/p>\n
The question now is what the AFL<\/a> will do with this format. South Australians will certainly embrace it. Perth deserves another crack as soon as possible. The locals came out in droves, the same way they packed the stadium for the Big Bash League final, and the same way they provided the best atmosphere of the season in last year\u2019s elimination final.<\/p>\nBut the spectre of injury will always hang over the fixture. It\u2019s a game that supporters, coaches and high performance managers will watch with their hearts in their mouths. Weitering has been cleared of any neck, spinal or major internal injuries, with further investigations required to assess soreness he is still experiencing in his chest. Like 49 other players, he knew the stakes and he rolled the dice. But when things go wrong, it\u2019s his club that pays the price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even for the most sceptical, there was never any question that the quality of skill in the State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-481867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481867","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=481867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}