Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Chris Scott, the head coach of Victoria, has a promise to put on a display and hopes that the State of Origin revival on Saturday nights will leave a lasting tradition.
Northern Australia and Victoria will face off in their first AFL State of Origin game since 1999 at Optus Stadium, where 60, 000 fans will be able to watch from.
The biggest AFL players have a lot of support for the idea, with Victoria and WA both having talented young people with stacked factors.
Some critics have questioned how painful players will work in the face of harm risks and the fact that the season has not yet begun.
Contrary to some of the other exhibition game the AFL have staged over the past 20 years, Scott has no doubt that WA and Victoria players will be fighting it out for success.
” I know there have been a few games over the past ten or so that I believe we would characterize as a little more Mickey Keyboard,” Scott said.
” I believe it has been a really significant game for about 25 years.
And I guess the responsibility to really establish something bigger comes with the honor that we all feel when we are asked to symbolize our condition.
We’re never making any guarantees about what this may turn out to be in the future, but we surely don’t want to endanger it and make the people who might be questioning it experience justified.
We’re very confident that we can throw on a great show.
WA will be led by Carlton star Patrick Cripps, while Victoria’s American Bulldogs equivalent Marcus Bontempelli will take the place of.
Since the idea was confirmed next year, Scott has been pleased with how both sides have embraced it.
Both camps have said that we feel a duty to do this correctly, according to Scott.
Bont and I had a talk when we were initially approached, and that was the first thing that we discussed.
” We had no interest in doing it if it wasn’t taken seriously. So we now feel that we must follow through on that.
It’s still unclear how a team would respond if one of its players received a severe injury.
However, according to Scott, players could as easily hurt themselves in a process fit as well as have the bad luck of hurting something while training.
During an intra-club game on Friday, legendary GWS playmaker Tom Green allegedly broke an ACL.
In response to Green’s injuries, Scott said,” It’s a sad thing.
Nobody expresses any feelings for GWS or Tom in certain other than love.
It only serves to highlight that these things take place during this time of year, whether it is during an Optus State of Origin or during an trivial training session.
” These issues are risks, but one that all the players and the training team have been more than willing to take,” the statement read.
The fit will feature the likes of pilot Marcus Bontempelli, Bailey Smith, Caleb Serong, Matt Rowell, Nick Daicos, Zach Merrett, Zak Butters, and Noah Anderson, and Victoria may play a magnificent center.
Although WA coach Dean Cox acknowledged that his team was the losers, he is convinced that they have the right balance to entice an uproar.
The Victorian team’s caliber and what they’ve accomplished singly through their own clubs have been outstanding, Cox said.
” Despite that, ( our players ) complement one another and, in their own right, have had incredible football careers as well.”
