The 2006 NRL season was the 99th season of professional rugby league football in Australia and the ninth run by the National Rugby League. The lineup of teams remained unchanged from the previous year, with fifteen clubs competing for the 2006 Telstra Premiership. Throughout the 26 rounds of the regular season ten teams from New South Wales (9 of them from the Sydney basin), two from Queensland and one each from Victoria, the ACT and New Zealand competed for the minor premiership. Eight of these teams qualified for the four-week finals series, with the Brisbane Broncos eventual victors over the Melbourne Storm in the grand final.[2] Melbourne finished the regular season first so were awarded the minor premiership, but this was later revoked due to the Melbourne Storm salary cap breach.
Penrith Panthers halfback Craig Gower was fired as captain, suspended for four games and fined $100,000 ($90,000 to be paid to an NRL programme encouraging the responsible use of alcohol by league players and $10,000 to replace a destroyed golf cart) after a string of alcohol-fueled incidents at a charity golf function.
The Charity Shield heralded the unofficial start of the season, with the South Sydney Rabbitohs defeating St George Illawarra 14-12 in their first home game at Telstra Stadium on February 18. All NRL clubs engaged in a series of trials during the month of February.
Wests Tigers premiership-winning captain Scott Prince announced on March 3 he had signed a four-year deal with expansion team Gold Coast Titans, beginning in 2007. Prince relinquished the captaincy of the Tigers for the 2006 season.
New Zealand Warriors salary cap breach
The salary cap for the 2006 season was A$3.366 million per club for their 25 highest-paid players.[3] The New Zealand Warriors were investigated by the National Rugby League over alleged salary cap breaches committed by the team's previous administrators. The club admitted to inflating its salary cap to the tune of nearly $1 million during the 2005 season. The National Rugby League fined the Warriors $430,000 and ordered the team to start the season with a four premiership point deficit. It was the first time in 99 years of rugby league in Australia that a team has started a season on less than zero premiership points.
The Warriors appealed the decision by the NRL to deduct the four competition points but accepted the financial penalty. Prior to the beginning of the season, the National Rugby League confirmed that the points penalty would stand. The penalty would prove the decisive factor in the Warriors missing the finals for the third year in succession.
The season began on March 10 with a match between defending premiers Wests Tigers and the St. George Illawarra Dragons, played at Telstra Stadium. The Melbourne Storm won 20 out of 24 regular season matches to win the minor premiership eight points clear of the Bulldogs.[4] However, in April 2010, the Storm were retroactively stripped of their minor premiership as a result of salary cap breaches occurring over the course of the 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons.[5][6]
The grand finals:
Brisbane Broncos vs Melbourne Storm (NRL)
Parramatta Eels vs Newtown Jets (NSW Cup)
Penrith Panthers vs Newcastle Knights (NSW Jersey Flegg Cup)
The winners in all grades were:
Brisbane Broncos (NRL)
Parramatta Eels (NSW Cup)
Penrith Panthers (NSW Jersey Flegg Cup)
The test match
Australia vs New Zealand
The tri-nations Series
Australia vs New Zealand
Australia vs Great Britain
Great Britain vs New Zealand
The State Of Origin Series
Queensland vs New South Wales
Venues
Sixteen stadiums regularly hosted National Rugby league matches, with a further six hosting at least one match in season 2006.
In 2006 the NRL and their advertising agency MJW Hakuhodo stayed with the Hoodoo Gurus' "That's My Team" soundtrack for a fourth year, producing a treatment aimed to appeal to the fundamental hope of all players and fans: that it would be ‘their team’ who would win the Grand Final.
Capitalising on the enthusiasm generated by the Wests Tigers triumph of 2005 in only their sixth season, the campaign line and song chorus was changed to ‘That’s My Dream’.
All fifteen NRL club captains featured heavily in the television and outdoor ads holding aloft the Telstra trophy. Eight young real life fans also featured in the TV commercial reflecting the origins of the game from backyard football scenes to Sydney beaches. Each was a fan of one of eight clubs who had not till then won the Telstra Premiership trophy and four different broadcast versions of the ad told the stories of their love of the game and each's dream of their own team's victory.
The Dally M Awards were introduced in 1980 by News Limited. The most prestigious of these awards is the Dally M Medal which is awarded to the Player Of The Year. The other prestigious award is the Provans Summons Medal which is the season's best player as voted by the public. As well as honouring the player of the year the awards night also recognises the premier player in each position, the best coach, the best captain, representative player of the year and the most outstanding rookie of the season. The awards night and Player of the Year medal are named in honour of Australian former rugby league great Herbert Henry "Dally" Messenger.
Clinton Schifcofske ran 3,741 metres with the ball in 2006, more than any other player in the competition.[9]
The Brisbane Broncos set a club record for their biggest comeback win when they came from 18-0 down at half time to win 30-28 against Canberra Raiders in round 8.
The Melbourne Storm set a club record for their longest winning streak with 11 games from Round 12 to Round 23.
New Zealand Warriors defeated South Sydney Rabbitohs 66–0 in Round 16. This set new records for New Zealand's greatest winning margin and South Sydney's greatest losing margin.
The Newcastle Knights and Canberra Raiders set the league record for the highest aggregate score in a match, with a total of 102 points scored in Newcastle's 70–32 win in Round 2. The previous record (97 points, between St George and Canterbury-Bankstown) had stood since 1935.
The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks set a then-club record for longest losing streak with 10 matches from Round 17 to Round 26.
Nathan Merritt became the first player to top the try scoring chart from the wooden spoon winning side.[10]
1The Melbourne Storm were later stripped of this minor premiership due to gross salary cap breaches. 2The New Zealand Warriors were deducted 4 competition points due to gross salary cap breaches.
Ladder progression
Numbers highlighted in green indicate that the team finished the round inside the top 8.
Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the team finished first on the ladder in that round.
Numbers highlighted in red indicates the team finished in last place on the ladder in that round
Underlined numbers indicate that the team had a bye during that round.
The Melbourne Storm went into the finals for the first time as Minor Premiers. They had a week off after their first finals win against the Parramatta Eels 12-6 to prepare for a preliminary final encounter, again the St. George Illawarra Dragons which was won by the Storm 24-10, earning them a spot in the Grand final against the Brisbane Broncos. The Broncos had surprised everyone in the previous two months. After a slight hiccup in the qualifying Final, going down against St. George Illawarra Dragons 20-4, they came back in the next two weeks, beating the Newcastle Knights 50-6 in the Semi-final and coming from 20-6 down at halftime to win 37-20 against the Bulldogs in the preliminary final.
↑ Budge, Dale (2006-02-22). "NRL salary cap guide". tvnz.co.nz. Television New Zealand Limited. Archived from the original on 2012-10-05. Retrieved 2009-12-17.
↑ "Broncos claim premiership". Television New Zealand Limited. Australian Associated Press. 2 October 2001. Retrieved 17 December 2009.
↑ During the 2006 season, many of the stadiums were known by different names to their traditional ones, as some were sponsored by various organisations. For example, Aussie Stadium was also formerly known as the "Sydney Football Stadium", likewise, Mt Smart Stadium was known as 'Ericsson Stadium' for the majority of the season, until the naming rights expired.
The National Rugby League is a professional rugby league competition in Australasia which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand.
The Parramatta Eels are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL).
Luke MacDougall is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer in the National Rugby League competition, who last played for the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. He previously played for the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, South Sydney Rabbitohs, St. George Illawarra Dragons, Newcastle Knights and the Melbourne Storm. MacDougall's position of choice was on the wing.
Nathan Frederick Cayless is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, and has coached in the 2010s. He played at representative level for New Zealand (captain), and at club level in the National Rugby League (NRL) for the Parramatta Eels, for whom he was a long-time captain, as a prop. He captained the New Zealand national team to a Rugby League World Cup victory over Australia in the 2008 Rugby League World Cup, and coached at club level in the Intrust Super Premiership for the Wentworthville Magpies from 2016 to 2018.
The 2007 NRL season was the one hundredth season of professional rugby league football club competition in Australia, and the tenth run by the National Rugby League. Sixteen teams contested the NRL's 2007 Telstra Premiership, and with the inclusion of a new team, the Gold Coast Titans, the competition was the largest run since the 1999 NRL season.
The 2006 Brisbane Broncos season was the nineteenth in the club's history. Coached by Wayne Bennett and captained by Darren Lockyer, they won the NRL's 2006 Telstra Premiership, finishing the regular season in 3rd place before going on to defeat the first-placed Melbourne Storm in the 2006 NRL Grand Final.
The history of the National Rugby League (NRL), the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia, goes back to December 1997, when it was formed in the aftermath of the Super League war of the mid-1990s. The NRL has, in its relatively brief history, enjoyed growth and record attendance figures.
The 2007 NRL season consisted of 25 weekly regular season rounds, starting from 16 March and ending on 2 September, followed by four weeks of play-offs that culminated in a grand final on 30 September.
The 2007 Parramatta Eels Season was the 61st in the club's history. They competed in the NRL's 2007 Telstra Premiership, finishing the regular season in 5th position, and came within one match of the grand final only to be knocked out by eventual premiers, Melbourne Storm, who would later be stripped of this title after being found guilty of salary cap breaches.
The 2006 Melbourne Storm season was the 9th in the club's history. They competed in the NRL's 2006 Telstra Premiership, winning a record 20 out of 24 regular season games to finish in first place and win the minor premiership, eight points clear of the second-placed Bulldogs. The team backed up their stellar defensive effort the previous year to concede just 404 points in 2006. The retirement of Robbie Kearns saw a rotating captaincy introduced between David Kidwell, Scott Hill, Cameron Smith, Matt Geyer and Michael Crocker. Cooper Cronk also assumed the halfback duties following the departure of Matt Orford. Storm won 13 of their last 14 games of the season to take a great run of form into the finals where they progressed to reach their first Grand Final since 1999 after wins over the Eels and Dragons. This broke a run of three straight semi-final exits for Craig Bellamy’s team.
The 2008 National Rugby League season consisted of 26 weekly regular season rounds, starting on 14 March, followed by four weeks of play-offs, culminating in a Grand Final on 5 October.
The 2008 Melbourne Storm season was the 11th in the club's history. They competed in the NRL's 2008 Telstra Premiership and finished the regular season as minor premiers before reaching the grand final in which they were beaten by the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 40–0, the largest margin in grand final history. The minor premiership won by the Storm in 2008 was later stripped by the NRL in 2010 when it was revealed the club had been in breach of salary cap rules.
The 2009 NRL season was the 102nd season of professional rugby league football club competition in Australia, and the twelfth run by the National Rugby League. For the third consecutive year, sixteen teams competed for the 2009 Telstra Premiership title. The season commenced with the first match played on 13 March and ended with the grand final, played on 4 October. The Grand Final was won by the Melbourne Storm in their fourth consecutive grand final appearance. However, they were stripped of their Premiership on 22 April 2010 after they were found to be guilty of breaching the league's salary cap.
The 2009 Melbourne Storm season was the 12th in the club's history. They competed in the NRL's 2009 Telstra Premiership and finished the regular season 4th out of 16 teams. They then progressed to their fourth consecutive grand final, this time to be played against the Parramatta Eels and won, claiming their second premiership in three seasons, a title later stripped in 2010 after being found guilty of salary cap breaches.
The 2009 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the NRL's 2009 Telstra Premiership season. Played on 4 October 2009 at Sydney's ANZ Stadium was contested between the Parramatta Eels and the Melbourne Storm, the latter competing in their 4th grand final in a row. That was later stripped from them for breaking the salary cap rule. It was also the first Grand Final to feature the two referee system, with Shayne Hayne and Tony Archer being the first referees to jointly officiate in an NRL Grand Final.
The 2010 NRL season was the 103rd season of professional rugby league football club competition in Australia, and the thirteenth run by the National Rugby League (NRL). The season commenced on 12 March and ended with the grand final, played on 3 October at ANZ Stadium. Sixteen teams competed for the 2010 Telstra Premiership whilst the third season of the National Youth Competition was also in progress.
The 2011 NRL season was the 104th season of professional rugby league football club competition in Australia, and the fourteenth and last run by the National Rugby League's partnership committee of the Australian Rugby League and News Ltd. The NRL's main championship, called the 2011 Telstra Premiership due to sponsorship from Telstra, was contested by sixteen teams for the fifth consecutive year. Alongside was the fourth season of the Toyota Cup taking place.
In 1990, the NSWRL introduced a salary cap system in an attempt to even the playing field of teams in the Winfield Cup. The National Rugby League has adopted the salary cap system from its predecessor. A special team headed by former Australian representative Ian Schubert deals with salary cap issues and monitors teams on a yearly basis.
The 2002 Melbourne Storm season was the 5th in the club's history. They competed in the NRL's 2002 Telstra Premiership and finished the regular season in 10th place making it their lowest finishing position until 2010, when it was sentenced to finish that season last due to gross salary cap breaches. As of 2022, it is also the most recent time that the Storm missed the finals due to not winning enough games. It was Mark Murray's final season as coach of the club.
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Brisbane Broncos (6th title)
Melbourne 
Hazem El Masri (296)
Nathan Merritt (22)
