Many of those are the type of people the NRL is trying to attract to the game as new fans - specifically women and children - and while it is merely coincidental, the fact it occurred on Mother's Day has also been commented on. While the incident with Mason will soon be largely forgotten, the impending selection of Sims for the Maroons has the potential to cause ongoing damage to the game's credibility in an even bigger way than what Greg Inglis playing for Queensland does as brother Tariq may line up against him for NSW. This has nothing to do with the NRL's proposed changes to representative eligibility rules, which are extremely positive as they would allow the likes of Anthony Milford to play for both the Maroons and Samoa - unless he was chosen for Australia. A misunderstanding of the proposed changes by some in the media has caused confusion but no-one who is ineligible to represent Australia now would be able to play Origin, ruling out the likes of Semi Radradra, Jordan Kahu, Sio Siua Taukeiaho and Wellington Albert. In fact, the residency requirements for Origin are far stricter than they are at international level in league and most other sports as only players who lived in Queensland or NSW before the age of 13 can play for those states.

Also ineligible are those players who were either born or grew up in Australia but have chosen to play for England or New Zealand, such as Kieran Foran, Jason Nightingale, Dean Whare, Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, Gareth Widdop and Jack Reed. Under the current eligibility rules, players are allowed to change their country of choice once in between World Cups. As a result, Milford would have had to change his allegiances from Australia to Samoa to have been able to play in the recent Pacific Test after representing Queensland Under 20s last year but the Brisbane-born playmaker would then be ineligible for State of Origin. Others Australian-born or raised players such as Josh Papalii (Samoa), Andrew Fifita (Tonga), Daniel Tupou (Tonga), Tariq Sims (Fiji) and James Segayaro (PNG) could only have played for their country of heritage if they were prepared to give up on playing State of Origin, despite not being chosen for Australia in the Trans-Tasman Test that was played on the same weekend. The proposed eligibility rule change would allow them to play for a Pacific nation without being ruled out of Origin contention, provided they lived in either Queensland or NSW before the age of 13.