In this article, we tackle two seemingly different but equally iconic pillars of Aussie culture: the livestock industry and the National Rugby League (NRL).
By comparing the number of cattle exported from each Australian state with the fervour and passion surrounding the NRL State of Origin game one, insights and parallels are drawn between the two.
In light of one of the nation’s greatest contests, APlus News has taken data from and presented to you a wrap up of where AuctionsPlus have seen cattle listed or “originated” from (delivery state) within our platform, over the past six months (November 22, 2024 to May 22, 2025).
To narrow down a snapshot of the data, we’ve chosen to represent the 280-330kg weight range for cattle listed on the platform (including those re-offered).
New South Wales once again has held the lion’s share of cattle sold within the specific weight range, with 33,428 head sold – contributing to 47.3% of all listings within the period.
Meanwhile, Queensland offered the second greatest volume of cattle with 17,519 head offered, holding approximately 25% of listings. The southern states VIC, SA and TAS combined representing 26.9% of the listings shown.
AuctionsPlus’ Network General Manager, Paul Holm, said the favourable season in Queensland may have seen producers hold onto stock longer, as well as the drier conditions in Southern NSW have seen in comparison may be the reason for the lead in numbers.
“From an online platform perspective, a lot of our users with feed are based in NSW and Southern QLD, so it may be worthwhile for southern producers to advertise livestock into these regions,” Mr Holm said.
In a state-by-state breakdown, we’ve looked at the top delivery towns and the respective top breed type based off throughput.
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In Queensland, the top delivery town over the past six months was Winton, with 3,948 head listed.
Scott Taylor, of Grant Daniel & Long — Winton, who has been an AuctionsPlus assessor for more than 20 years, was surprised to see Winton top the state’s list, but says the current season has been “one of the best on record”.
“At the start of the year, we were really, really dry — some clients had cattle too light to truck and were just hanging out for rain,” Mr Taylor said.
“Then we had a little bit of rain, then a heap of rain, all of it beneficial. There wasn’t too much overall damage — just a bit of fencing — and no real stock losses.
“Up until Easter we were quiet, but since Easter we’ve been flat out, from my point of view.”
Located nearly 1,400km northwest of Brisbane, Winton is also the hometown of Queensland Maroons player Kurt Mann.
Mr Mann, who played junior footy for the Winton Diamantina Devils, was first called into the Maroons camp during the Covid bubble for Game III in 2021 under coach Paul Green.
Now with the Canterbury Bulldogs, Mr Mann has been named the 18th man for Queensland in this year’s series.
Meanwhile, the top delivery town out of NSW was Walcha, with 8,366 head listed over the past six months.
While no NSW Blues squad members for Game one have a direct affiliation to Walcha, Blues captain Isaah Yeo hails from Dubbo in the NSW Western Plains — a region highlighted in the AuctionsPlus Q1 Power Rankings report as consistently active in both listing and purchasing livestock online.
View upcoming cattle auctions here: https://auctionsplus.com.au/commodities/cattle
