If Joey Leilua or Josh McGuire are picked out of the Samoan side to play state of origin, they'll have to change their country of election to Australia – but they may be the last players required to do so. Plans are afoot to finally allow NSW and Queensland stars to represent tier-two nations without changing their eligibility – a major step forward in an era where players choose origin, and Australia by default, for financial reasons. "We're going to review everything regarding the weekend, from the teams' preparation to things like eligibility," said the NRL's Andrew Hill. Players who qualify for the Maroons and Blues will still not be allowed to play for New Zealand or England. And the foreign-eligible players involved in City-Country can still play for Fiji, Italy, Scotland and the United States without changing their country of election.

Pre-match entertainment

One of the great aspects of the representative weekend is the pre-match rituals of the Pacific countries. We had hymns and war cries on the Gold Coast but our favourite was the Niue "dance" before their 48-4 win over South Africa at Campbelltown Stadium on Saturday night. It started with chanting and clapping in a semi-circle, then the Niue boys advanced towards the Rhinos – some of them actually crawled. The islanders then formed a new line and the Saffers stepped forward to face them, the two sides ending up only about a metre apart. While all this was going on, officials on the sideline were still desperately searching for a football!

Good news for league

League fans who have been calling for the sport to return to one set of rules – not the three of four we have at the moment – should prepare themselves for some good news. The media release out of the Rugby League International Federation meeting in Brisbane over the weekend didn't say much – but buried somewhere down near the bottom was this: "The RLIF Laws Committee will be tasked with maintaining a single set of laws for the game with innovation being encouraged to further enhance the sport through regulations proposed in national competitions." The RLIF now has a new battleground – the United Arab Emirates Rugby Union is trying to stop the local league from using the word "rugby" in its name, the sort of thing that we've been dealing with for roughly 120 years.