World of Rugby League | Queensland | Queensland Grandstand
 
THANKS A MILLION, ARTIE

Queensland took out the match with the emotional crowd of about 30,000 chanting "Artie, Artie, Artie" in honour of state skipper Arthur Beetson, who played the role of a football giant in engineering this excellent victory.

Beetson played one of his greatest matches in his first outing in the Queensland jersey.

The 35-year-old Roma-born Beetson gave the crowd everything they could have wished for, with a match that excelled anything he had produced in recent years.

He shook off suggestions of injury or disinterest when he crashed, slashed and punched his way through his Australian team mates in the New South Wales team.

It was a Beetson punch which started a wild all in brawl midway through the first half, when the big man had raced in to protect his diminutive halfback Greg Oliphant.

Oliphant was being punched by giant second rower Graeme Wynn when Beetson stormed in, throwing punches.

The two sides erupted in the brawl which ended with three separate groups of players wildly throwing punches.

It was soon brought under control, but that fire remained throughout the match, with many more individual punches being thrown, but not getting out of hand.

Oliphant, who also turned in a gutsy performance, left the field later to be told that he had been dropped to reserve grade with his Sydney club Balmain.

While Beetson had the crowd eating out of his hands with his tremendous courage, it was hard to go past the explosive attack and defence of Queensland centre Chris Close, who justifiably won the $1000 man of the match award. He will also receive in excess of $1000 winning bonus.

Close had some magnificent runs, and capped his performance with an individual try which would be hard to go past as the best seen on Lang Park in years.

At one stage three players appeared to have him wrapped up, but he burst out of their tackles, fended off another attempted tackle, and with sheer speed burst around Test fullback Graham Eadie to score the try that sent Queensland to a sizzling 18-5 lead, with 26 minutes to go.

It was Close who also set up Queensland's other try, with a beautiful pass to his winger Kerry Boustead who flew over in the corner.

Each team scored two tries, but it was the magnificent goal kicking of Meninga which gave Queensland the wide winning margin. Meninga kicked seven goals from seven attempts.

Queensland hit the front in the second minute when Mal Meninga kicked a goal, and they were never headed.

Queensland forwards, particularly turned in a memorable match, with great defence and a willingness to take the ball up at every chance.

Beetson got tremendous support from John Lang, Rod Morris, Rohan Hancock and Wally Lewis. Unfortunately, Rod Reddy did not have one of his greatest games.

There was some terrific and fiery defence also from New South Wales, with forwards Jim Leis, Bob Cooper and Craig Young getting through a lot of work. Leis, I thought, was the best player in the New South Wales team.

Tom Raudonikis was strong as usual, and scored a good individual try, Eadie did nothing to redeem the bad reports of his recent form from Sydney.

Webmaster's Comments: This match started off a great institution and 21 years on, State of Origin is now one the most anticipated moments in the Rugby League calendar. There were two interstate matches played before the inaugural State of Origin game: NSW won both games 35-3 (at Lang Park) and 17-7 (at Leichhardt Oval). The late great Ron McAuliffe, then QRL chairman, is accustomed to being the creative force behind the concept. McAuliffe vigorously pushed the idea to the NSWRL and they (eventually) agreed to play the third game of 1980 under State of Origin rules. The rest, as they say, is history.

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