The Sydney Swans have headlined the NSW State of Origin Team for 2023 with six players and three coaches named in the team.
Errol Gulden, who won this year’s Carey Bunton Medal for the best player from NSW in the AFL this season, was selected on the wing alongside teammates Harry Cunningham, Nick Blakey, Callum Mills, Isaac Heeney and Braeden Campbell.
The coach of the team is Sydney Swans coach John Longmire, who played Origin for NSW in 1988 and 1990, and originally hailed from Ovens & Murray League club Corowa-Rutherglen.
Adelaide’s Taylor Walker was named captain of the team, in a season where he also won the Bill Mohr Medal (named in honour of the St Kilda goalkicking champion in the 1930s from Wagga) for leading NSW goal kicker this season with 76 goals.
In announcing the NSW State-of-Origin team for 2023, NSW Australian Football History Society patron Richard Colless, who leads the selection process said, “This year’s team is equally as strong as last year’s, and the selectors felt that this team could give most AFL teams a run for their money”.
“Thirteen members of the team came from southern NSW stretching from Albury to Moama including the Wagga area and the MIA, while six players are from Sydney, with Taylor Walker from Broken Hill, and Isaac Heeney from Newcastle”.
“Three of the Sydney players – Buckley, Blakey and Gulden - were recruited from UNSW-Eastern Suburbs, the most from any single club. Two clubs provided two players each - Kieran Briggs and Braeden Campbell (both from Pennant Hills), and Collingullie-Glenfield Park duo Harry Perryman and Matt Kennedy.
“As the convenor of the selection panel, I want to thank the selectors, Gerard Healy, Mike Sheahan, Mark Maclure, and Wayne Carey, and Rod Gillett for their considered input”.
“We were very pleased to have the support from the AFL Coaches Association for the voting system for the Carey-Bunton Medal. Thank you to Alistair Nicholson and his team at the AFLCA”.
NSW State of Origin Team 2023
Keiren Briggs (GWS), Jacob Hopper (Richmond), Matthew Kennedy (Carlton)
Harry Cunningham (Sydney), Nick Murray (Adelaide), Harry Himmelberg (GWS)
Harry Perryman (GWS), Jack Buckley (GWS), Nick Blakey (Sydney)
Errol Gulden (Sydney), Callum Mills (Sydney), Isaac Smith (Geelong)
Luke Breust (VC – Hawthorn), Taylor Walker (C – Adelaide), Isaac Heeney (Sydney)
Lachie Schultz (Fremantle), Tom Hawkins (Geelong), Jeremy Finlayson (Port Adelaide)
Reserves: Jarrod Witts (Gold Coast), Braeden Campbell (Sydney), Todd Marshall (Port Adelaide), Taylor Duryea (Western Bulldogs)
Coaches: John Longmire (senior), Greg Stafford, Lenny Hayes, Ben Mathews, Jarrad McVeigh
