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Origin locked in: But how can it be improved?
SEN • July 27th, 2026 4:25 pm
AFL’s State of Origin concept has been locked in for the next three years.
The AFL has confirmed that there will be Origin fixtures in 2027, 2028 and 2029 to be played in Perth and Adelaide following this year’s successful return between Western Australia and Victoria.
South Australia enters the chat next year, travelling to Optus Stadium to meet WA, before the Croweaters host Victoria in 2028. The Vics will return to the west to take on WA in 2029.
Gerard Whateley and Adam Simpson welcomed the prolonging of Origin on SEN.
Victorian native and West Coast premiership coach Simpson - an admitted early skeptic - is talking himself around to Origin… but only if the game’s very best players continue to make themselves available.
The pair chatted through Origin and came up with a few things they would tinker to improve it.
Simpson: “So we're not worrying about the rest of the country?”
Whateley: “Not for the moment. We have three formalised states and then you might grow it back to an Allies or something else.”
Simpson: “I’m going to get behind this.”
Whateley: “You've been a skeptic?”
Simpson: “Not a skeptic, just... a skeptic, that's a good way of describing it. I can't think of anything else.
“Mainly because I just don't think it's going to last. That was my initial thought, that his would be good for two or three years, four years maybe. And then someone's going to not play and then someone else is not going to play and then it's just going to drift off again.
“So I'm going to get behind it though. I think there's they've got to fix some things in the pre-season.”
Whateley: “So what has to be learnt from this year?”
Simpson: “The first game a lot of them played and they went turbo. So, when you get the best talent in the country, you're going to get a fast game.
“The conditions in WA, it's always fast in pre-season. So is it the second week of pre-season? That's the tick that you're looking for.
“The length of the game. That's the other piece.
“You hope the coaches aren't scarred because there's no doubt there's some scarred coaches out there. ‘We are not doing that again. I'm not risking a whole year on that game’, as much as I've heard some coaches go, ‘No, it's all good’.
“I’m no longer going to be the wet blanket that Garry (Lyon) tells me I am, as long as it's done the right way.”
Whateley: “So the timings were off. The game went far too long, far too long.
“They chose 25 minutes and an alteration, but it actually made it go longer instead of shorter. That's easily fixed. You want 100 minutes. That's it.
“You don't want it going 120 minutes. You want 100 minutes. So work backwards to get the formula for that right.”
Simpson: “It was well-attended and watched and that sort of stuff. You just hope the players will buy in again to the WA-SA game. I'm sure they will, especially South Australia.”
Whateley: “I think the players took it up and it was going to swing entirely (on them) and they took it up with relish. To your point, probably too much.
“So it'll last as long as they want to play, as long as it means something to them. And you have to play two games in the lead-up to the season, one for your state, one for your club, or you play two for your club.”
Simpson: “I would have loved winner stays on, I would have loved that. And the winner always plays away.
“So Victoria wins, they play away next time. You've got to go to their home ground to hold the title. Yeah, and then you would have rotated if Victoria wins every year, but they’ve got to win away every year. I think that's sort of what it's built for get him out of Victoria.”
Whateley: “So the trick and the structure that they've gone for is it's got to maintain momentum through Western Australia and South Australia because everyone wants to play Victoria.”
