For the past few days I've been in Macksville and Bowraville on the New South Wales north coast. On Friday night the locals watched their greatest sporting product, Greg Inglis, tear apart New Zealand in the rugby league test in Melbourne.

Inglis is Aboriginal, and a source of pride to the small community from which he comes. Bowraville, a few kilometres up the Nambucca Valley from the larger Macksville, is where he grew up among about 500 indigenous people in a town of some 2500. The area's racial past has been troubled at times, so Inglis ought to be a unifying figure, given the almost total devotion to rugby league in the area.

But it hasn't quite panned out that way. When I asked indigenous kids who their league hero was, the answer was pretty much unanimous: Preston Campbell. The Gold Coast whiz has family connections in Bowraville, though he was raised in Tingha, a few hours away. Inglis, however, grew up in the place. Why aren't there posters of him in every bedroom and on every telegraph pole?

It turns out to be nothing personal. Nobody remembers Inglis as anything other than a freak athlete, likeable and relatively quiet. But rather than being a hero to these Aboriginal kids, he stands as another symbol of what's been taken away from them.

Inglis was spotted young and recruited to the Melbourne Storm's feeder team in Brisbane. Good work by Melbourne and a stroke of good luck, as it eventuated, to Queensland.

Bowraville people don't have anything against the Storm, but they didn't all flock to purple colours when Inglis joined the club. There are lots of Roosters supporters, Rabbitohs supporters, Bulldogs supporters and Tigers supporters thereabouts - not because people are Sydney-centric, but because they've been following their league for a long time, and loyalty to a club can't be overturned by one player. In an ideal world for them, if there were a north coast team, Inglis would be playing for it and representing his people. In the world we have, devoted supporters stick to their team and admire Inglis from a distance of mixed feelings.

There ought to be the fallback position: supporting Inglis all-out in State of Origin. But this is where they are really peeved. Bowraville is about halfway between Sydney and Brisbane. Or put another way, Bowraville is about 500 kilometres south of the Queensland border. From down south, Bowraville may seem a fair way up the map. From Bowraville, Queensland might as well be another world. Bowraville is staunchly New South Wales, and Greg Inglis is no more a Queenslander by origin than billy the local goat.

A few years ago, when they'd lost a succession of origins, Queensland bleated about the concept being endangered. As it would be, if Queensland stopped producing top-class players. What happened was, in order to save Origin, Queensland won some concessions about how to classify players' origins. The result was that Inglis, a New South Welshman who briefly played junior football in Brisbane, became a Queenslander. Israel Folau, even less a Queenslander, was reclassified northwards as well. The links in both cases were tenuous at best. And hey presto, the Queensland production crisis proved to be a momentary panic. They came up with Johnathan Thurston, Justin Hodges, Billy Slater, Darius Boyd, Karmichael Hunt, Cooper Cronk and a host of other real home-grown stars, as they always have and always will, because Queenslanders make great footballers. With the transplanted Blues Inglis and Folau thrown in, Queensland became unbeatable.

You can argue the rights and wrongs of the qualification rules until you're blue (or maroon) in the face, but none of it washes in Bowraville and Macksville. Inglis, who doesn't play for a club team many there follow, also doesn't represent them in State football.

It's a shame, that's all it is. The disappointment to cap it all came in February, when Inglis was ruled out of the Indigenous All-Stars team in the game Campbell helped inspire. The reasons for his withdrawal looked murky - a Melbourne quid pro quo when Slater pulled out of the NRL All-Stars team - but again, in Bowraville's indigenous community it just spelt disappointment. They were looking forward so much to this one game where GI was playing for them.

The upshot will be that for the time being, Inglis is a genius without the kind of home that a Wally Lewis, an Andrew Johns or a Peter Sterling had. They all represented their place, in club and Origin football. It meant something then and it still does now. Ask the mob in Bowraville.

At least on Friday, Inglis was representing them again, for Australia. When he pulls on a Kangaroos jersey, he's playing for his home. It just doesn't happen often enough.