New South Wales rugby league team

Pre-Origin era (1907–1980)

The New South Wales rugby league team pre-dates the Australian national team, playing their inaugural match against a rebel New Zealand rugby team on the 1907–08 New Zealand rugby tour of Australia and Great Britain under existing rugby union rules. That inaugural "All Blues" side, the first football team assembled by the newly formed NSWRFL was:

Backs: Charles Hedley · Johnno Stuntz · Ed Fry · Dally Messenger · Frank Cheadle · Albert Rosenfeld · Lou D'Alpuget
Forwards: Harry Hamill · Arthur Hennessy · Bob Mable · Peter Moir · Sid Pearce · Billy Cann · Robert Graves · Herb Brackenreg

Two further matches were played against New Zealand before their tour took them to the Northern Hemisphere, with Jim Devereaux also featuring for the Blues. The visiting All Golds won all three games. However, on the return leg of their tour, almost a year later, with the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership established, the Blues won the first two matches they ever played under 13-a-side rules against New Zealand. Later in 1908 the Queensland team, whose first taste of rugby league football was also against the visiting Kiwis, traveled to Sydney for the first series of games between the two states. New South Wales won all three matches, setting a precedent for interstate dominance that would continue throughout most of the 20th century.

In 1910 New South Wales defeated the touring England team in two of their three games. After that they became the first Blues side to travel to Queensland for the annual interstate series.

In 1912 the New South Wales team first toured New Zealand. They also visited New Zealand in 1913. During the 1913 New Zealand rugby league tour of Australia New South Wales played four matches against the Kiwis, winning three of them.

The New South Wales team lost its first game against Queensland in 1922. This year the Blues also toured New Zealand.

During the 1951 French rugby league tour of Australia and New Zealand New South Wales played one match against the successful France national rugby league team, a 14-all draw.

In a 1954 tour match between Great Britain and New South Wales the referee left the field in disgust at the players' persistent fighting after 56 minutes so the match was abandoned.

State of Origin era (1980 – present)

New South Wales' dominance over Queensland came to an end with the introduction of 'state of origin' selection rules in the early 1980s.

During the Super League war, in 1997 New South Wales was represented by two teams: one made up of players from clubs that remained loyal to the Australian Rugby League, which competed in the 1997 State of Origin series; another made up of players from clubs that joined the rebel Super League which competed in the one-off Super League Tri-series.

Ricky Stuart, who had previously coached New South Wales in 2005, was announced as the first full-time Blues coach in November 2010. Following the 2012 series, the Blues' seventh consecutive loss, Stuart resigned the role. Stuart took a role as the Parramatta Eels head coach in 2013, citing family reasons for his move. Although the Blues continued their losing streak during Stuart's tenure, he is credited with restoring passion and pride to the NSW jersey and closing the gap between the two states. He was replaced by former Canberra, NSW and Australia teammate Laurie Daley. Daley's appointment as NSW State of Origin coach was announced in August 2012 and effective from season 2013. Daley got job over candidates including Trent Barrett, Brad Fittler and Daniel Anderson. Daley coached the Blues to a series victory in 2014, their first since 2005 and over his coaching rival and long time Canberra & Australian teammate Mal Meninga. Daley ended Meninga's and Queensland's run of eight series wins with victories in Game I and Game II of the 2014 series

Colours and badge

The primary colour of New South Wales Blues is sky blue, which represents the state colour of New South Wales. The secondary colour is navy blue, with additional contrasting colour of white.

Supporters

The official New South Wales rugby league team supporter group is known as "Blatchy's Blues".

Most recent squad

1 - Josh Dugan was originally selected to play in Game I, but he withdrew due to an elbow injury. He was replaced by Josh Morris.
2 - James Tamou was originally selected to start on the bench in Game I, but however on game day he swapped positions with Greg Bird. Bird was moved from lock to bench, Tamou moved from bench to prop and Paul Gallen from prop to lock.
3 - Wade Graham was originally selected to play in Game II, but he was suspended. He was replaced by Tyson Frizell.
4 - Josh Morris was originally selected to play in Game II, but was forced out due to injury. Dylan Walker was moved from the bench to centre, while Jack Bird was promoted from 19th man to the bench.
5 - Adam Reynolds was originally selected to play halfback in Game III, but withdrew due to injury. James Maloney shifted from five-eighth to halfback and Matt Moylan, who had originally been dropped from the squad for James Tedesco, was recalled into the squad to start at five-eighth.

Team of the Century (1908–2007)

Before Game I of the 2008 State of Origin series, to celebrate the game's centenary that year, New South Wales named their team of the century:

Origin greats

As part of the 25-year celebrations in 2005, New South Wales named 25 legends for each year before that.

Coaches

New South Wales have had a total of thirteen different coaches at State of Origin level, eight of which have previously played for the Blues.

Selectors

The current New South Wales State of Origin side's selection panel consists of Bob Fulton, Bob McCarthy and Geoff Gerard. During the Blues five series loss from 2006 to 2010 they came in for criticism. The selectors have come under increasing amounts of criticism as NSW also lost the series in 2011, 2012 and 2013 making it a record 8 series losses in a row for the Blues.