The A to Z of the NRL returns, and although State of Origin is a long way off in 2020 (if at all), this edition is all about a select group of NSW Blues one game wonders.
For us, the one game wonder is not a derogatory term, merely a rugby league story that never quite got going, or someone who was just unlucky to be in a position that had way too much competition.
Or they are a player who carried the can for a loss and were never picked again, which happened quite a bit for NSW back in the day.
We’ve picked our favourite NSW State of Origin One Game Wonders, and hopefully we have a great cross section of the obscure, the memorable, and those who we barely remember playing Origin at all.
All stats are from the world’s greatest rugby league player stats website – the Rugby League Project.
Tommy Raudonikis – 1980
NSW’s equivalent of Arthur Beetson, with just the one game (and the NSW captain) in the very first State of Origin clash in 1980.
Raudonikis actually played 24 times for NSW outside of Origin between 1971 and 1980, and he is the first and most illustrious member of the NSW one game club.
The Blues’ first captain also went on to coach his state, like Beetson, and ended up with three wins and three losses from six games in charge, which is a better record than we thought.
He was the architect of the ‘cattledog’ cry as Blues coach; the canine catchphrase which was the spark for the all-in brawl.
The larger-than-life Raudonikis actually spent a few years in between his playing and coaching days in the old Brisbane rugby league competition as a coach.
Phil Duke – 1982
One of the more memorable one game wonders for the Blues, but for the wrong reasons.
Duke was involved in the most infamous errors in State of Origin history (before Justin Hodges’ nightmare Origin debut in 2002) when he failed to get to a Phil Sigsworth pass, and the lurking Wally Lewis scored and claimed victory for the Maroons.
He was the first player for NSW in the State of Origin series to be picked from outside of the NSWRL competition.
It was also the start of a great NSW Blues tradition of blaming a loss on the debut player and never allowing them to right their wrong.
Phil Blake – 1989
Phil Blake was quite the versatile player, and it was perhaps that versatility that counted against him for playing more State of Origin games for NSW.
That, and he had the likes of Steve Mortimer, Brett Kenny and Peter Sterling ahead of him.
Blake played a whopping 272 games in the NSWRL/ARL for six clubs, and two clubs in the UK.
Despite all those games, it is hard to remember him playing a game for NSW at all, especially off the bench.
We think that a player like Blake would be very useful in a modern day Origin team as the bench-warming all-rounder.
Sadly for Blake, his only game came in 1989, which saw Wally Lewis at his arrogant best for the Maroons, as they swept two series’ in a row over 1988 and 1989.
Ricky Walford – 1990
Ricky Walford is one of those players from the 1980s that we can remember easily from the regular NSWRL/ARL competition, as it felt like the Dragons played the Saturday game on ABC TV game every second week.
What wasn’t easy to remember was that he featured for NSW in State of Origin.
Walford played over 200 games in the NSWRL/ARL (most associated with St George), and was a very good goal kicker as well as try scorer. But he never got the chance to do either in his one-off game in 1990, as the Blues won 8-0 on the back of a Mark McGaw try and a Michael O’Connor goal.
Walford missed games two and three through injury, and never got another chance. But at least he got to be on a winning side.
Scott Gourley – 1993
Former Dragon and Rooster Scott Gourley holds a very rare feat in this group of NSW State of Origin One Game Wonders: one game for NSW and one for Australia.
Uniquely, he played his only Test for Australia two years before his only Origin game.
It’s hard to remember that he played for either.
Gourley was a quality player at the time; the former Wallaby ended up player over 170 games in the NSWRL/ARL, and featured in grand finals for the Dragons in 1992 and 1993.
The lanky second rower, a predecessor to the Luke Ricketson-type of player, was still good many years later in a St George Old Boys v Warwick charity match. He hardly looked like he had left, and was the best on the ground.
John Hopoate – 1995
More famed for one digit, Hopoate played his one and only Origin in 1995, the second game at the MCG, with NSW losing the match and the series to Fatty’s ‘no names’: a Maroons side decimated by the Super League war, and minus just about every star from the year before.
That game at the MCG was famous for an all-in brawl, of which Hopoate provided one of the talking points, as he and Danny Moore (his Manly teammate at the time) took wild swings at each other.
Hopoate went on to become even more famous half a decade later…
David Peachey – 2000
So this one is a technicality, as David Peachey actually played three interstate clashes in the 1997 Super League season; but as great as those contests were, we’re talking State of Origin.
Peachey was a fine fullback, playing most of his 266 games in the Shire, but sadly only got one chance for the Blues in 2000.
It wan’t a bad one-off though, as he scored the winning try in game one that season. He missed the two remaining games through injury and never got another chance as Tim Brasher, Mark Hughes and Anthony Minichiello got their chance at the back.
A point of interest is that when Greg Inglis first started at Norths in Brisbane he resembled the Cronulla fullback’s looks and style of play so much that his nickname was Peachey. Who’d think that the Peachey clone from NSW would go on to be one of the Maroons’ biggest weapons for over a decade?
Jarrod Mullen – 2007
Jarrod Mullen was just 20 years old when he became the Blues halfback in 2007, and was filling some rather large shoes in the interstate series, just as he had at club level at Newcastle.
Safe to say that it didn’t quite work out.
NSW lost the first game, and not for the first time – or last – one of the halves carried the can for the loss and was stamped ‘never again’.
From memory there wasn’t anything too memorable about the performance. One wonders how much it hurt being replaced by the safer hands of Brett Kimmorley.
His career went slowly downhill after his Origin one-off, but possibly not as bad as the fall from grace off-field.
Hazem El Masri – 2007
Hazem El Masri (aka Hazem El Magic) was a solid NRL performer, one of the great goal kickers in NRL history, and an underrated winger. But even we forgot he played State of Origin for NSW. Albeit just the once.
The Bulldogs star featured in game three of the 2007 series, where he was a late replacement for Jamie Lyon. It was as good an experience as one game wonders could get.
He was part of the NSW side that won the dead rubber at Suncorp Stadium, and he scored a try and kicked three goals, good enough for 10 of the 18 points NSW scored.
Did he deserve more games? Possibly. But at least he wasn’t part of the Blues teams that suffered a subsequent six more series losses.
Terry Campese – 2009
Terry Campese was the driving force of a consistently inconsistent Canberra Raiders in the mid-2000s. From 2004 to 2014, he played 139 games as the Raiders made the finals every ‘even’ year from 2004 to 2012. He nearly equally Mal Meninga’s Raiders point scoring record in a single game (38) with 36 as Canberra beat Penrith 74-12 in 2008, and was named co-captain with Alan Tongue in 2010.
Unfortunately, Campese’s Blues debut came when Queensland were almost invincible. He played five-eighth as the Maroons won game one 28-18, and was replaced by Trent Barrett. He was never seen at Origin level again, though he did play for Italy in the 2017 Rugby League World Cup.
Still, he’s played one Origin more (so far) than Raiders teammate Jarrod Croker, who’s likely to become one of the greatest players never to play Origin or Test footy.
Cody Walker – 2019
Cody Walker is one of the great stories of rugby league in the past few seasons. It wasn’t until his mid-20s, and many a season in the second tier, before Souths gave him an NRL break.
Walker took his opportunity, and has been a start for the Rabbitohs ever since.
His fairytale story culminated in a NSW Blues Origin jersey for game one of the 2019 State of Origin series. He was rightly chosen as the starting five eighth as he and his Rabbitohs team were red hot leading into the series.
Sadly, the Blues’ campaign started off with a loss, and Walker was pulled from the field in the second half, a rarity for a playmaker in an Origin game without injury.
He was swiftly replaced for the next game and the Blues went on to win the series.
Since he is not likely to don the sky blue again, we’ll end off with the most recent one game wonder who probably may have gotten another chance if he was from Queensland.
NSW STATE OF ORIGIN ONE GAME WONDER FULL LIST
| Player | Position(s) | Matches | T | G | FG | Pts |
| ALBERT, Darren | Wing | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| BLAKE, Phil | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| BOWDEN, Steve | Front Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| BROOKS, David | Second Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| BUETTNER, Michael | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| BUHRER, Jamie | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| BUTTERFIELD, Tony | Front Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| CAMPBELL-GILLARD, Reagan | Front Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| CAMPESE, Terry | Five-Eighth | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| CARTER, Steve | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| COOPER, Bob | Second Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| ČOTRIĆ, Nikola | Wing | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| DOWLING, Garry | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| DUKE, Phillip | Wing | 1 | 1 | – | – | 3 |
| EADIE, Graham | Fullback | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| EDGE, Steve | Hooker | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| EL MASRI, Hazem | Wing | 1 | 1 | 3 | – | 10 |
| GALLOWAY, Keith | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| GORDON, Michael | Wing | 1 | – | 3 | – | 6 |
| GOURLEY, Scott | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| HAAS, Payne | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| HALL, David | Wing | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| HAMBLY, Gary | Front Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| HANCOCK, Craig | Wing | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| HANSON, Steve | Front Row | 1 | 1 | – | – | 4 |
| HASTINGS, Kevin | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| HILDITCH, Ron | Front Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| HOPOATE, John | Wing | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| IDRIS, Jamal | Bench | 1 | 1 | – | – | 4 |
| JENSEN, Barry | Hooker | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| LEIS, Jim | Lock | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| MATTERSON, Terry | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| McKINNON, Don | Front Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| MELROSE, Tony | Wing | 1 | – | 2 | – | 4 |
| MERLO, Paul | Second Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| MERRITT, Nathan | Wing | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| MULLEN, Jarrod | Halfback | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| O’HARA, Ryan | Front Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| PEACHEY, David | Fullback | 1 | 1 | – | – | 4 |
| POTTER, Michael | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| PRIOR, Matt | Front Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| RAUDONIKIS, Tom | Halfback | 1 | 1 | – | – | 3 |
| RODWELL, Brett | Bench | 1 | 1 | – | – | 4 |
| SARGENT, Mark | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| STONE, Robert | Bench | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| TURNER, Steve | Wing | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| WALFORD, Ricky | Wing | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| WALKER, Cody | Five-Eighth | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| WALSH, Chris | Second Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| WRIGHT, Rex | Hooker | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| WYNN, Graeme | Second Row | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| YOUNG, Dean | Hooker | 1 | – | – | – | – |
THE A TO Z OF RUGBY LEAGUE SO FAR
D is Defunct Clubs and Disused Grounds
E is for English Rugby League Players in Australia
F is for Best Rugby League Facial Hair
H is for Best Rugby League Hair
J if for Best Rugby League Jerseys
[…] N is for NSW Origin One Game Wonders […]
[…] Although the 2020 State of Origin is going to be played after the NRL season finishes, that doesn’t stop the A to Z of the NRL squaring the ledger with the Queensland Origin One Game Wonders after our previous effort for the NSW Blues. […]