City vs Country Origin

Country

Australia

How it feels

Two rugby league teams, one from Sydney and one from the rest of New South Wales, play an annual match. Over time, the city team became too strong so they changed the rules to let country-born players play for the country side.

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What happens

City vs Country Origin was an annual Australian rugby league football match that took place in New South Wales between City and Country representative sides. The City side represented the Sydney metropolitan area. The Country side represented the rest of New South Wales. The concept of an annual clash between a City and Country team originally started in 1911 with a Metropolitan side taking on the Country team. The first match officially took place on 10 June 1911 with City taking the victory 29 to 8. It would take another seventeen years before an annual clash between an official City and Country side was agreed upon during the 1928 season. Both sides were originally made up of the best players playing in the Country Rugby League of New South Wales and the Sydney-based NSWRL Premiership. However, the increasing drain of players from rural areas to the NSWRL clubs led to the City side becoming increasingly dominant and the Country side uncompetitive. The 'origin rule' for player qualification being introduced in 1987 so players in NSWRL clubs originally from outside Sydney became eligible to represent Country. The players who represented the City and Country sides came from the National Rugby League competition in Australia. The match was played before the State of Origin series and was often referred to as a selection trial for the New South Wales Blues team. The final senior men's City vs Country annual match was played in 2017, with the fixture thereafter scrapped. From 2021, an expanded City vs Country representative round featuring grades other than senior men's was introduced, including Under 16's, Under 18's and Open Age Men's games, Open Age Women's games, and Wheelchair and Physical Disability, was introduced. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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• 2024 State of Origin series
• 2022 State of Origin series
• Over The Black Dot
• Australian Tri-Series
• Friday Night Football (1988)
• All Stars Match
• The Game Plan (2011)
• The Barefoot Rugby League Show (2008)