'Leave your club at the door': Blues unite in nod to Mortimer

Leave your club jersey at the door.

That was the instruction from NSW coach Michael Maguire when the squad assembled for Wednesday night’s Origin series opener.

It was a message reinforced by members of the history-making 1985 team at a dinner, attended by 85 former Blues players, paying tribute to Steve Mortimer, who captained the first NSW side to win an Origin series.

“I really resonated with that, and what Steve Mortimer bought to the Blues side,” NSW five-eighth Jarome Luai said.

“We took that message to heart, and we felt that passion. It was really powerful.

“We are not Samoa, we are not Penrith, we are not Roosters, we are NSW. That’s how we want to speak, that’s how we want to act. We are NSW Blues now, we are nothing else but NSW Blues.”

Mortimer famously rallied NSW players to put the state ahead of club loyalties in a desperate bid to end Queensland’s domination since the Origin concept was introduced in 1980.

If they have got a maroon jersey on, the hate comes with it.

Blues hooker Reece Robson

Michael O’Connor, who was last week inducted into the NSWRL Hall of Fame, along with 1985 team-mate Steve Roach, recounted how he had testified on behalf of Mortimer to help him beat a high tackle charge at the judiciary.

“He broke my nose, and I went in and gave evidence that it was an accident - that he had hit me on shoulder - because if we didn’t have Steve Mortimer we probably wouldn’t have won that series,” O’Connor said.

“He became our captain and he was just such an inspirational leader at a time when NSW hadn’t experienced any success at all.”

O’Connor played for St George, while Mortimer was captain of Canterbury, and in previous seasons the power of clubs was so strong that NSW players had played for their clubs on the weekend before an Origin.

“The first few seasons of Origin weren’t good for NSW. It took a bloke like Turvey to bring the Sydney clubs together,” O’Connor said.      

“In NSW for some reason the clubs were all important and players didn’t want to upset their clubs.

“It wasn’t until Steve Mortimer came along and said, ‘look, we are all one, we have got to be unified if we are going to beat Queensland’, that things changed.”

Maguire believes Mortimer, who kissed the SCG turf after the Blues clinched the 1985 series, is worthy of similar recognition in Origin folklore to Queensland great Wally Lewis for his influence on the culture of the Blues.

With Mortimer’s NSW No.7 jersey hanging on the stage and the halfback great, who is suffering dementia, surrounded by his former team-mates, the current Blues squad watched a video and heard stories about his influence.

On the way to the first match at Lang Park, now Suncorp Stadium, Mortimer told the driver of the NSW team bus to stop in Caxton Street, where it was pelted with beer cans thrown by fanatical Maroons supporters.

“He said ‘we’re in enemy territory here, nobody likes us,” O’Connor recounted.

“That person out there on the street, he hates you; the hostesses on the plane up here, they hate you; the hotel staff, they hate you. Then he pointed at the bus driver, and he said, ‘even the bus driver hates you’.”

With five Cowboys team-mates in the Queensland team, Blues hooker Reece Robson was asked if he could conjure up hate for them in the Origin arena.

“Yes, if they have got a maroon jersey on, the hate comes with it,” Robson said. “My team-mates are the ones in the blue jerseys.

“A bit of a theme we have spoken about - and it is as important for myself as anyone else in the side - is leaving your club at the front door when you get into camp.

“I find it pretty easy to set that aside. I am a New South Welshman so when I get down here it is definitely good to be around my Blues brothers.”

NSW vice-captain Isaah Yeo said the tributes to Mortimer, driven by Maguire, had helped galvanized the Blues players.

“The pride in the jersey has always been there but I feel like there is a more specific purpose to what we are doing,” Yeo said.

“All the boys have bought into it, and the whole camp has been tremendous.

“I feel like we have really had the support, particularly from the old boys, and that has been a real driving thing, so it is now up to us to make sure we are at our best and put in a performance the state is proud of.”