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AT AROUND noon on Monday last week, a group of six footy fans in the Adelaide Hills set out on what they described as a "treasure hunt" at op shops around the city. Barely an hour had passed since South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas had officially announced the return of State of Origin footy to the Adelaide Oval. And it's not until early 2028 that an entire generation of South Australians will get their first live glimpse of the "closest thing to a World Cup" when AAMI AFL Origin comes to town. But the hardcore half-a-dozen weren't about to wait to get their hands on as many old-school 'Kick a Vic' t-shirts as they can find. "We've also started looking for them online, and it's funny how some of their prices are already being jacked up," said one of two members in the passionate crew who wasn't around the last time a South Australian team played Victoria in a State of Origin match. He's heard enough while growing up about the passion, the energy and the rowdy partisanship. Not to forget the slogan in the 1980s that was used to express "the competitive spirit" between the two states, even if it was rather notoriously brazen. AAMI AFL ORIGIN All you need to know about Origin footy's return For Mark Ricciuto, this is among the most exciting parts about impending end of the lengthy hiatus of Origin football for South Australians. The fact that it can finally bridge two generations, the ones who lived through the excitement of barracking for your state team and those who only have had second-hand narratives to imagine it from. "For 28 years, these kids would have heard about it from their parents and grandparents. It's been a long gap and it's great to see everyone excited about it," he says, "including the current players, which is why I wanted to get involved with it." Ricciuto was present for the official unveiling on a chilly winter morning in front of the iconic Adelaide Oval scoreboard, stood proudly alongside the state Premier and Tom Harley, the AFL's chief operating officer. The Adelaide Crows legend donned his state's colours on five occasions during his illustrious career and now gets to be the chairman of selectors to gather the best South Australian players in the country to take on Western Australia next year before the Victorians come calling in 2028. It is a full-circle moment for Ricciuto as he steps into a role that was most famously held by his hero, the late Neil Kerley in the heyday of State of Origin footy. "'Knuckles' (Kerley) was my idol. He was already a living legend at the time when he recruited me from the Riverland and it feels like an extra special honour to be given the role that he made so coveted," says Ricciuto, who'll now have the task of putting together a squad that should consist of names like Connor Rozee, Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera and Jordan Dawson. If Kerley was the godfather of the South Australian Origin team back through the 1980s into the last decade of the showcase competition, Graham Cornes was the super coach. With him at the helm, South Australia racked up a very impressive 8-2 record, and as Cornes tells us, it all came down to the "surge of state pride" that came along with going up against their archest rivals. "We hadn't seen that level of state pride before then. We also had a collection of great players who had gone to play in the VFL in that period before the Adelaide Crows were a thing. You're talking about the likes of (John) Platten, (Tony) McGuinness, (Craig) Bradley. There were also those like Chris McDermott and Garry McIntosh who stayed back, and before the AFL came along, I was always keen on getting a good mix of SANFL and VFL players to make it a solid representation of all our talents," says Cornes. The memories he recalls most fondly, in addition to the great talents on show, involve the atmosphere at Football Park, which in his opinion was up there with the MCG and what we see at the Adelaide Oval these days for Port and Crows games. It's a sentiment shared by every footy fan in the state who are currently in their 40s and beyond. There was the joy of seeing some of your favourite local players who'd gone away to show their wares off in the VFL coming back to don the SA jumper. There was also, however, that greater joy of sticking it up to the other two states, each of which was convinced that their style of footy was the best. But above all, it was about getting one over the Victorians. As prominent Victorian footballers go, there were few who stood out more than the charismatic Robert DiPierdomenico or 'Dipper' as he's better known. And the giant midfielder with the handlebar moustache, who played in seven State of Origin games, remembers what it was like to be part of the "hunted" team. "South Australia and Western Australia hated Victoria because we were seen as the No.1 league in the country and you had a lot of their star players come over to play in the VFL. I thought SA had a wonderful style of footy, as did WA, but every time we played them you could sense that they were trying to show their fans and us that they were just as good as us, which made it even more competitive," he says. According to footy historian, Shannon Gill, the fixation for other states to beat Victoria was a big part of the State of Origin narrative. "It was a little like the Ashes of the past two decades: the cricket has seen better games and better contests when in England. When Victoria played South Australia or Western Australia on the road through that period, it was the best of footy, and the most even of contests," he said. In my eight years of living in South Australia, I've always wondered if the state's sporting rivalry against Victoria is at some level built on a bit of an inferiority complex. You surely see it in cricket. The cheers for the South Australian men's cricket team during their Rundle Mall public celebration last year were as loud for having broken their 29-year Sheffield Shield drought as they were for them having beaten Victoria twice en route to achieving state cricket glory. You also see that manifest itself in more everyday facets of life and society, from bragging rights over who's got the best coffee and wine, to even politicians throwing barbs at each other from across the Murray River simply to gain some brownie points with their own constituents. I was sledged by a number of Melbourne-based Australian cricketers about having chosen Adelaide as my hometown. Cornes admits that the inferiority complex was very much prevalent back in the day, especially when it came to state footy, and overcoming it by beating Victoria finally in 1983 was a turning point in how South Australia viewed itself as a footy state. "I played in 21 state games during my career, a lot of them against Victoria and never managed to beat them. It always puzzled me because we had wins over Western Australia and Tasmania quite regularly," he explained. "My theory was this inferiority complex manifested itself in us trying to be something we weren't against Victoria. We thought we had to match them physically when we had other skills and assets, which were better than theirs. Our game style, for instance, was focused around handballs and quick hands and it's only when we started doing what we were good at that we started winning." Unlike cricketers and even rugby players, players from the world of Australian football rarely, if ever, got to experience the feeling of representing their country. Like Dipper insists, putting on the Big V jumper and running onto the field in a State of Origin game was the closest feeling for most players he played with and against. "I was fortunate to play for Australia in some internationals over in Ireland. But with State of Origin, it became our pinnacle where you got to represent something bigger than just your club, which we were used to," he said. "It was a case of representing our history as a state, and the legends who had proudly worn that jumper before us. It was a feather in your cap if you got selected. You are going on the bus and getting revved up by Kevin Sheedy and Billy Goggin and, you know, E.J. Whitten is there wanting you to win desperately. You are hearing stories about (Alex) Jesaulenko and Bobby Skilton, and you know it's showtime." Another aspect of state footy that he gets super excited simply reminiscing about is the nature of who you got to play with and against. As a one-club man, Dipper was part of one of the most successful eras in Hawthorn's history, but some of the best times he reveals while playing in the Big V came when he got to rub shoulders with his staunchest opponents from the VFL world. "You are excited firstly to put on the Big V alongside your teammates like Dermott (Brereton) and Russell Morris and Jason Dunstall, but then you are sharing a dressing-room all of a sudden with Gerard Healy and Greg Williams who you are constantly up against when you are in Hawthorn colours. But then you also get to play for a change against the likes of Platten," he says before quickly adding with that characteristic chuckle, "I still remained very protective of Platten. If anyone's roughing him up, I'd go up and say, 'come on, come on, let him go'. I had an eye out for Johnny all the time." "It was also great for your confidence. If you did well in a state game, you brought it back with you for the club and Allan Jeans would always tell us to observe our opponents while we were playing alongside them and pick up tips on how to play against them when we were back at Hawthorn." At the end of the day, what helped elevate State of Origin footy to being as significant as it was, is the quality of the matches. And whether it's Cornes or anyone who witnessed it, there is a consensus around the 1994 South Australia v Victoria clash being the greatest ever. It's quite worth a rewatch too, as Tony Modra and Gary Ablett snr show off their goalkicking skills at either end while the star cast up and down the field hold court. It also happened to be a very young Ricciuto's maiden taste of high-profile state footy. "I nearly missed that game because I got stuck in traffic down West Lakes Boulevard. The whole city was chock-a-block," he recalls. "I was the youngest person on the ground and playing on the man (Ablett) whose poster was on my wall. Only two years prior, I was playing country footy in front of tooting horns and here I was in front of over 50,000 going nuts at Footy Park. It was unbelievable, especially with the great finish where Gary took the mark on the goal square two seconds before the siren went off, but we won." It's a dramatic finish with South Australia winning by two points on the back of a contentious call from the umpire concerning Ablett. But what's even more memorable is footage of the legendary Whitten walking around Rundle Mall the next day with a SA jumper on yelling, "This smells of South Australia," before going on to stop midday traffic on the streets of Adelaide. All because of a lost bet. While it was a great illustration of Whitten being a good sport, Cornes still treasures the SA jumpers that he wore during his time as a player, and they have a pride of place in his house even now. "Back then, we weren't given training guernseys, and we had to bring our own footy jumpers and there was this great pride if you could wear your magnificent red state jumper to train in. I remember seeing Neil Kerley wearing it once at training and going, 'gosh it would be great if I could do the same someday'." Then there were those that they swapped with players from the opposition, a couple of which Cornes still holds on to with great reverence. "I've got one from Gary Buckenara at WA and Peter Knights from Victoria. I swapped with Peter after a game at Footy Park in 1975 and I bump into him at the Hall of Fame dinner every year and without fail I say, 'I've got your No.10 jumper. Do you want it back?' and he'll say, 'I've got your No.12 jumper. Do you want it back?' and then we both go 'Nah, it's fine'." The big challenge for the concept of Origin football to once again recapture the imagination of footy fans, Cornes feels, is for it to regain the magic it once held in the footy calendar. And he's curious about how the AFL manages to do that with the games over the next three years slated to be held before the start of the season, as the reboot was earlier this year in Perth. "I coached South Australia in the last of its kind back in 1999. The challenge for them is that by keeping it as a pre-season game rather than a mid-season one, you do run the risk of it feeling more like an exhibition game, especially since at that time of the year the players aren't yet fully ready for footy season. But what we do know is that there'll be a lot of excitement in Adelaide when the Victorians arrive in 2028," he says. And maybe even more 'Kick a Vic' jumpers on sale by then. What Ricciuto is intrigued by the most though is to see Port and Crows fans sitting together and barracking for the same team around the Adelaide Oval for the first time ever. "Maybe there have been times when the Crows have needed Port to win or vice versa but even then you're not going to get any fan owning up to it. But this will be different. For one night, they'll all be going for South Australia," he said. I remind him it'll also be the first time this will transpire in front of the stand named in his honour at the Adelaide Oval. To which he says, "Oh yeah, maybe for once, we might even get some Port supporters excited to go sit in the Mark Ricciuto Stand."