State of Origin

Last night I met up with a co-worker and his college (uni) buddies. We went to an Irish pub to watch the State of Origin game. It's a yearly match against NSW and Queensland. Last night was the decider, the third game in a best of 3 series. Queensland is known as the Maroons or Reds (their jerseys are red) and NSW is called the Blues (you can guess their jersey color).

Now this was a rugby league game versus a rugby union game (the Lions Tour game with the English Lions vs the Australia Wallabies was a rugby union game). There are some minor differences in the rules and fewer players, but it is largely the same game. People seem to prefer rugby league games, and I think I liked it better, too.

It was a lot of fun cheering on the Blues. Unfortunately, they lost, making it 8 years in a row for the Reds. But it wasn't uneventful. Besides an exciting game, there was a streaker at the end of the game. In the US, the cameras are quick to pull away and not show streakers (with the idea that it would only encourage streakers if you prominently showed them). However, this guy got ran onto the field in the middle of a run right when the Reds were about to score a try. He actually kind of blocked for the Reds and forced the Blues to run around him. So it was kind of hard for the cameras not to show him. The Reds scored, but the try was disallowed and the Reds got the ball in what was effectively a do over. I was super confused at first. I thought maybe there was an injured player? But nope. Just security guards tackling an old, fat streaker.