No, seriously. If ever there was a case to be made for not playing a State of Origin dead rubber, surely 2021 is it.

The Australian Rugby League Commission is set to hold crisis talks on Tuesday about how the NRL can navigate Sydney's rapidly spreading COVID-19 outbreak.

High on the agenda will be the final match of this year's State of Origin series, scheduled to be played in Sydney on July 14.

That's five days after Gladys Berejiklian's lockdown is slated to end, but as ARLC chair Peter V'landys hinted late last week: "If you look at previous [lockdowns] they take a while to go back to normal".

Which means Sydney is off the cards.

Newcastle has been slated as a potential alternative, but there's no guarantee that's a viable option given its proximity to Sydney, and the premier's warning that case numbers would continue to increase.

That potentially leaves the unthinkable - playing the dead rubber in Queensland. The NRL may still get a crowd in that scenario, albeit nothing like the 80,000 who would turn out to ANZ Stadium were we not wading through the quicksand of a global pandemic.

But there'd be bums on seats, and broadcast obligations would yet be met.

Or...

...Or they could just call it off.

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Is playing the deadest of Origin rubbers we've ever seen really that important when Australia's Covid goal posts have shifted so frighteningly far in just a week?

I know it's the jewel in the crown. It's mate against mate. State against state. It's what our game has that no other sport possesses. I get that.

Like most folk south of the Tweed, I'd love nothing more than to watch the Blues make another Maroon mess in game three be that in Sydney, Townsville or on a dusty clearing in the outback flanked by a couple of goalposts.

But it's hardly a fair fight at the moment. In half a decade Queensland has gone from Origin's most historically dominant entity to its most farcically embarrassing.

Their new coach Paul Green has watched his side score one try in 160 minutes while rugby league fans were left flabbergasted in the lead up to game two when it emerged Queensland had picked a player in Ronaldo Mulitalo who was told he couldn't play for eligibility reasons.

Were this baseball, the mercy rule would have already been invoked.

And just leaving Covid aside for a moment longer, what is there to gain on the field by playing the third, and final, game of the series?

A further death knell to Green's tenure as Maroons coach?

A pre-game spiel by Phil Gould into an ever-circling, low-angled camera, telling us why Origin is still the world's greatest sporting event, even if it is only being played competitively by one state at the minute?

Heaven forbid ... a season-ending injury? I'm sure NRL coaches in Queensland, NSW and Victoria would be delighted to hear game three had been purged.

From a coronavirus perspective, playing game three could toss up further ramifications which potentially affect the integrity of the remainder of this year's NRL season.

As it stands, Raiders star Jack Wighton will spend Monday traveling back to Canberra - via a chartered flight to Sydney airport and then in a car with an appropriately PPE-adorned private driver alongside dejected Maroon Josh Papalii.

He'll be required to self isolate for 48 hours but the Raiders were hopeful their star man would be able to rejoin his teammates on Thursday in preparation for Saturday's clash with the Gold Coast Titans.

A quick hypothetical - what if during the build up and playing of Origin 3, Covid restrictions tighten further? Players are potentially cut off from their NRL teammates for two weeks while the competition continues to bubble along in the background.

State of Origin has been a major headache for Queensland in 2021, but it's quickly morphing into a gigantic migraine for the NRL.

Perhaps it's time to just nip it all in the bud.