this topic has been done to death. No matter what anyone says he will play for QLD.
He represented QLD and Australia long before he represented NZ.
Read this from Wayne Bennett in the Courier Mail :
STATE of Origin is just around the corner and the way I see it, the Queensland team is not all that hard to pick.
Barring injuries, it looks pretty straightforward - and certainly a lot more straightforward than some of the arguments I've seen raised about the eligibility of a couple of players who happen to be pretty close to me, Brad Thorn and Tonie Carroll.
I am constantly amazed and disappointed by the way some people create arguments and then put their own slant on them. In this case, I've just got to presume - or at least hope - that no one buys the arguments being raised or the flawed logic being used to justify them.
We live in a country which prides itself on being multi-cultural and, to be that, we have to allow and encourage the people who have come here to live to embrace our culture and our national sporting teams. And, if they have the ability, we have to let them be part of those teams and to applaud them when they represent us.
I can speak with some authority about Brad and Tonie because they are Broncos and we spend a lot of time together and I can say categorically that the two of them are not interested in playing rugby league for New Zealand. They want to play State of Origin for Queensland and Tests for Australia.
First and foremost, they came to Australia, and Queensland in particular, as young boys. They played for Queensland at schoolboy level and Tonie represented Australia at that level. They regard themselves as Queenslanders and Australians.
Brad had a dream of playing for the All Blacks, but that was another code. In rugby league, he has always been committed to Queensland and Australia. End of section, as far as I'm concerned.
In Tonie's case, he always said he wanted to play for Queensland and Australia and he declined many, many approaches from the New Zealand Rugby League to represent them before 2000 when the world governing body declared a different set of rules for the World Cup. Luke Ricketson represented Ireland, Lote Tuqiri captained Fiji and Hazem El Masri played for Lebanon and all three later returned to play for Australia.
Why, I wonder,is there to be one rule for them and another for Tonie Carroll. I discussed his representative ambitions many times before 2000 and it was me who encouraged him to play for New Zealand in the World Cup after I phoned ARL chief executive Geoff Carr to make sure it would not mean he could never play for Australia.
The point is we say we want the likes of Brad and Tonie to feel Australian; we want them to "be" Australian so we can hardly say they can't be Australian for the purposes of football selections. I hope that balances the "argument" for you because as far as I'm concerned it should never have been an argument. And I won't be mentioning it again.
