The series was 2006. The Blues selectors initially chose Penrith halfback Craig Gower as their No.7. When Gower was forced to withdraw through injury, Matt Orford was called in before also promptly withdrawing through injury.

When Andrew Johns and Trent Barrett declined to come out of rep retirement, NSW sent out an SOS to fifth choice Finch. He was parachuted into camp, as he tells it, nursing the mother of all hangovers after a three-day bender.

History shows he scored a try and kicked the winning field goal – in short he had a blinder. The story only got better when Finch revealed his boozy preparation. 

Finch has since jokingly recalled how he went through a full 10-day camp before having a shocker in game two and getting punted for the decider. 

That story is one of many boozy tales featured in the big book of Origin folklore. Go to any sportsman’s lunch and the league legend on hand’s best yarns inevitably come from an Origin camp and involve copious amounts of the amber fluid. 

They can also go disastrously wrong – just ask Mark Gasnier and Anthony Minichiello who, in 2004, were perhaps the first NRL players to be brought majorly undone by a mobile phone.

Were it not for that infamous voicemail, it would’ve been just another night in Origin camp.

When looking at Josh Dugan and Blake Ferguson’s pub outing ahead of the most recent decider, it falls into neither category. For one it’s a dud story – a few beers, a pub lunch, no incident, home by 8pm. It’s hardly the stuff of legend.

A scandal of the proportions to which we’re seeing it blown? Nup, it’s not really that either. What it does show is that outrage is most often a cocktail served with hindsight. 

The fact Dugan and Ferguson went to the pub on a day off was hardly a secret to the media covering Blues camp, and why would it be? Dugan and Ferguson didn’t think they had anything to hide. It was only in the wash-up to a game three pasting that it became public. 

It made it very easy to pull out that infamous Instagram pic of the pair drinking Bicardi Breezers on a roof in lieu of Raiders training.

No matter how far in the past it is, that photo of Dugan flipping the bird never looks any better. In reality, that’s all this is, a poor look. Even in the court of public opinion you can’t pin a definitive charge on them.

That’s not to say the behaviour doesn’t warrant scrutiny. The pair have a history of making poor choices in each other’s company – we all have at least one mate like that.

People have said it points to a self-centredness within the Blues camp, and they’re right. People have said it shows a failure to grasp to importance of a series-deciding Origin game, and they’re right.

People have said it merely illustrates the gulf in culture between NSW and Queensland, and they’re right. 

People have said the incident should count against the pair at the next NSW selection meeting, and they’re right. People have said that’s as far as punishment should go, and they’re right. 

Dugan has said it was an error in judgement, and he’s right. He’s said he and Ferguson have been unfairly scapegoated for a loss in which the entire NSW team was culpable, and he’s right.

That’s what happens when the finger-pointing starts. Everybody’s right. But in the cold light of another Origins series defeat, we’re all losers.