"It would be like taking the Melbourne Cup out of Melbourne," said Maroons legend Gorden Tallis as he stood in front of NRL Nation, the game's family zone in Darling Harbour.

"It's not called the Australian Cup, it's called the Melbourne Cup. Keep it in Melbourne.

"Sydney is fantastic. We know that this is grand final week. The grand final deserves to have 80,000 people watching it. If we have the same-sized stadium, we deserve to get it. To lock 30,000 people out of that experience of going to a grand final [is wrong].

"I'm telling you now, in 10 years' time there will be 200,000 people who watched Souths win the grand final last year. It will be 'I was there with my mates' but they weren't there.

"It was like the first Origin ever, everyone says they were there but it was only about 15,000 or 17,000 people. You ask a Queenslander and there were 4 million, they say their dad was there. Where was it played – at the Colosseum?"

The absence of local teams will spark further debate about whether league's showpiece event should be taken from ANZ Stadium. Save for the 1997 Super League decider, which was staged in Brisbane, every grand final in the 107-year history of the game has been held in the Harbour City.

NRL CEO Dave Smith first flagged the prospect of the game being taken out of Sydney 12 months ago, although the current contract with ANZ Stadium doesn't expire until the end of 2019.

However, the state government's commitment to fund stadium redevelopment was contingent on quality content being staged in NSW.

"Taking a grand final to Brisbane is clearly an option," Smith said last week.

But even some of the biggest-name Bananabenders believe league's showpiece event should stay put.

"I'm happy to have it here in Sydney," Darren Lockyer said.

"I think tradition [is important]. In the AFL everyone wants to be at the last game at the MCG. For us at the moment it's ANZ Stadium. You still want to be strapping your boots on in the first weekend of October in Sydney."

For the first time in 21 years, a State of Origin match was taken to Melbourne this season.

While some pundits were concerned about how much interest league would generate in the AFL-obsessed city, a record Origin crowd of 91,513 witnessed one of the most entertaining matches in history.

It's expected that one Origin match will be taken from the heartland states every three years, while ARLC chairman John Grant has flagged the prospect of taking grand finals on the road when the current contractual commitments lapse.

"At the end of the day we've got to continue to grow our game, whether that be in Melbourne or Queensland," said former Brisbane and North Queensland centre Brent Tate.

"Sometimes you've got to look outside of doing things the same way. This year's success with Origin, Melbourne getting 91,000.

"At the end of the day it doesn't matter where you play it if there's a big crowd and big atmosphere for the game. You can play it anywhere and it wouldn't really matter."

Tallis has torn allegiances in Sunday's decider. The Raging Bull is one of Brisbane's finest players but is cheering the Cowboys because he is a product of northern Queensland.

"If both teams play to the best of their ability, this could be the best grand final ever," Tallis said.