State of Origin Folklore
Cronin made 21 appearances for New South Wales Blues up till 1981 under the old place of residence rules. He played in the inaugural State of Origin match in 1980 and made five further appearances for the Blues under the origin criteria up till the game III in 1983, despite having retired from international representative availability in 1982.
Mick Cronin's name was etched into Origin folklore that first night in July 1980 when fifteen minutes from the end of the game his Parramatta club teammate Arthur Beetson pirouetted in from the right side while Cronin was held up in a tackle by Queensland half Greg Oliphant and threw a loose left-arm around Cronin's chin. To this day that incident is cited in evidence that from the outset State of Origin football was "the real deal" where deeply rooted State passion would take priority over club friendships and loyalties. State of Origin rugby league has ever since been promoted as "state against state, mate against mate". This arch rivalry was typified by the Cronin/Beetson altercation notwithstanding that it was quickly forgotten and that they sat next to each other on the return plane trip to Sydney and didn't mention the incident.
Altogether Cronin represented New South Wales 27 times from 1973 to 1983, scoring 7 tries, 87 goals for 195 points.
Read more about this topic: Mick Cronin (rugby League)
Famous quotes containing the words state of, state, origin and/or folklore:
“Feminism, like Boston, is a state of mind. It is the state of mind of women who realize that their whole position in the social order is antiquated, as a woman cooking over an open fire with heavy iron pots would know that her entire housekeeping was out of date.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)
“That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead-drunk in the street, carried to the duke’s house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke’s bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“So, too, if, to our surprise, we should meet one of these morons whose remarks are so conspicuous a part of the folklore of the world of the radio—remarks made without using either the tongue or the brain, spouted much like the spoutings of small whales—we should recognize him as below the level of nature but not as below the level of the imagination.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)