Ten months of the year, Queenslanders are regular people whose only interest is to work hard and swing federal elections.
But come Origin time, the entire state becomes a maniacal bunch who go the full 80 as rabidly as they sip their own kool-aid.
Whether it’s their pious pontificating about passion, their grubbery or even just their BS about the Queensland Spirit, there is nothing more unbearable at Origin time than a Queenslander.
But who are the icons that rile us New South Welshpeople up the most?
19. Josh McGuire: Hardly a lethal threat in football terms but qualifies merely for embodying everything about Queensland by being effortlessly irritating.
18. Nate Myles: Celebrated as one of the Maroons’ craftiest customers but only because he was the first in history to use his brain, and even then it was only as a projectile.
17. Will Chambers: Another foot soldier who rarely delivered anything significant, but only because there wasn’t a metric for verbal diarrhea.
16. Dane Gagai: Disrespected NSW for years by carving us up in Origin despite playing like a mug in our club competition. League’s answer to Fine Cotton.
15. Brent Tate: While not the first Maroon to cheat – and certainly not the last – Tate confirmed Origin was rigged by being the first player permitted to take the field fitted with a rear spoiler. But it wasn’t just his neck brace and carry-on that peeved NSW, he also had one of those psycho running faces that made Brett Dallas look like a peaceful cadaver.
Maroons legend Mark Coyne, flanked by Adrian Lam and Wayne Bartrim. (Photo by Sean Garnsworthy/Getty Images)
14. Mark Coyne: Don’t be fooled by his gentle demeanour: Coyne is the face of the most nefarious act of terror inflicted on a football field. Sure, he was merely the last link in Queensland’s ‘Miracle Try’, but just because someone else builds the nuclear bomb it doesn’t excuse the triggerman.
13. Michael Hancock: Gyrated in the tackle so vigorously it would’ve been indictable in any other jurisdiction- but not up north. They celebrate “Queensland Passion” even when it’s humping the turf.
12. Greg Inglis: Sadly lost to NSW like a brainwashed Branch Davidian after abandoning the premier state for dogma and dial-up.
11. Billy Moore: A solid-as-rock North Sydney Bear who tragically net-zeroed himself by founding the ‘Queenslander’ war cry, an immortalised belch that is now scripture in Queensland and hate speech in NSW.
10. Wayne Bennett: Heralded as some kinda Origin mastermind merely because he had a game plan just like his side: simple.
9. Trevor Gillmeister: Everyone knows the fable of The Axe rising from his hospital bed to take part in a 1995 dead rubber. For those who don’t, it’s one of the most overblown cases of tinea ever reported.
8. Paul Vautin: Solely responsible for Origin’s lowest point by inspiring the 1995 Nevilles to an upset whitewash. Not only typical folklorish bilge, it also reminded us about Origin being the best of the best and how it’s a load of codswallop.
7. Carl Webb: The late great firebrand didn’t engage in any petty psychological ticky-tack, he just played so animalistically we should’ve tipped off PETA.
6. Billy Slater: Revered in Queensland as a morally pristine country boy despite expanding his kicking game to include the opponent’s neck.
5. Chris Close: Once burbled he could “give you a million reasons why we hate New South Wales,” Choppy’s got a chip on his shoulder almost big enough to eclipse his second head.
4. Justin Hodges: Exalted as a Maroon firebrand but only because he belted Eric Grothe Jr and Ben Creagh, one a winger and the other who’d fled the scene before the punch was thrown.
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
3. Gorden Tallis: Despite playing footy like he was released from a basement, Tallis remains so humorlessly precious about Queensland that he finds a Bryan Fletcher mimed grenade offensive.
2. Cam Smith: Slow, skinny and hairy, Smith was Barry Gomersall in a Maroons jersey only with twice as much power.
1. Wally Lewis: The one bloke entirely responsible for Queensland being a Scientologist-esque zealot factory by fomenting hate as an angry, balding smoker who we couldn’t lay a hand on. Was even once booed in Sydney while playing for Australia and it was a disgrace. We should’ve slashed his tyres too.
