State of Origin could be just months away from a return after a 26-year hiatus.<\/p>\n
The West Australian State government is believed to be working towards a February match at Optus Stadium next year, much like this year\u2019s pre-season Indigenous All Stars clash.<\/p>\n
Saturday, February 14, is shaping up as the day the fan-favourite fixture makes its return after disappearing at the turn of the millennium.<\/p>\n
7NEWS\u2019 Mitch Cleary reported on Monday that talks between the WA government and AFL ramped up last week, with final negotiations over costs and profit-sharing to come.<\/p>\n
The clash is set to pit the best WA talent in the competition against the best Victorians, meaning the likes of dual premiership Brownlow medallist Patrick Cripps could pull on the Black Swan jumper alongside Chad Warner.<\/p>\n
It could also see rising West Coast star Harley Reid don the Big V alongside Andrew Brayshaw, as well as Caleb Serong, and be the enemy of the Optus Stadium crowd.<\/p>\n
Momentum for State of Origin football has gathered throughout 2025, with the match likely to be a hot ticket for AFL fans.<\/p>\n
State of Origin\u2019s inventor, Leon Larkin, backed the game\u2019s return last month, suggesting it would be a roaring success if the AFL could get it up.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, it will work,\u201d Larkin told The West Australian. \u201cBut for different reasons than the original one.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralian football players are now full-time professionals, and when you\u2019re a professional, you always want to test yourself at the highest level.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best athletes in the world have the Olympics, Australian footballers have got nothing. They got this sort of mongrel game with Ireland occasionally, but they haven\u2019t got anything else.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the way that they can test themselves against the best is to play in something where they are tested at the very highest level.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou make the All-Australian team and it\u2019s fantastic, but it\u2019s just a record thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no game, is there? There is nowhere to go with that, whereas, if you can at least go up one level from what you\u2019re playing, I think that\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State of Origin could be just months away from a return after a 26-year hiatus. The West Australian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-60709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sport","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60709","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=60709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}