South Australia was once home to a professional club, the Adelaide Rams from 1997–1998.
History
The first instance of rugby league being played in South Australia occurred during the 1914 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand, when the touring Lions beat South Australia 101–0 at Hawthorn Oval in front of 2,500 spectators.
Current rugby league activity in the state traces its roots in the state back to the 1940s, when the Port Adelaide rugby union team split, and defected to rugby league. The first competition began in 1947 with five clubs.[3]South Sydney played a South Australian team in 1945 beating them 45–10.
Big time rugby league came to South Australia on 28 June 1991 when the St George Dragons defeated the Balmain Tigers in front of 28,884 fans at the Adelaide Oval for their Round 14 match of the 1991 NSWRL season. This would be the first of five consecutive years the Dragons (sponsored by South Australian wine company Penfolds) would play one home game per season at the Adelaide Oval. The attendance also stood as the NSWRL's largest minor round attendance of the 1991 season.
South Australia's only professional rugby league team, the Adelaide Rams, had a short but eventful existence. Originally the Australian Rugby League (ARL) planned to relocate one of the struggling Sydney teams to Adelaide, but the Super League war and the SARL's decision to align themselves with the News Ltd financed Super League in 1995 killed off the ARL's want for a team in Adelaide, and the ARL turned its attention back to Melbourne instead. Later in 1995, with Super League still only consisting of nine teams and the Victorian Rugby League still aligned with the ARL, a decision was made to give Adelaide the 10th Super League licence.[4]
In 1995 the ARL won their Supreme Court battle with Super League which stopped the rebel competition from starting its first season in 1996. This proved only temporary however as the decision was overturned on appeal and Super League would begin their new competition in 1997 with the Adelaide Rams one of the teams to be playing.
Brought into existence for the 1997 Super League season, the Rams had instant success, attracting 27,435 to their first home game at the Adelaide Oval against fellow newcomers the Hunter Mariners (the Mariners based in Newcastle, NSW). Results however would prove elusive for the new club who finished their inaugural season in 9th place, though they did enjoy some success against stronger clubs, with wins over the Auckland Warriors (away), eventual Grand Finalists Cronulla (away), and the Penrith Panthers in their final home game of the year.
In 1998 they were selected to join the 20-team National Rugby League, however rumours abounded that they were to axed from the 1999 season as part of the rationalisation of teams (from 20 to 16) in the competition. Crowd numbers fell away in 1998 as on-field results continued to elude the team, and a dispute over playing at the Adelaide Oval saw the Rams move to Hindmarsh Stadium for the final four rounds of the season. Poor on field results also resulted in inaugural head coach Rod Reddy being sacked halfway through the season and replaced by Dean Lance. The Rams finished what was their final season in 17th place with a 7-17 win–loss record.
The club got as far as their season launch for the 1999 NRL season before the club's owners News Ltd agreed to wind up the club before the season started.
There are five senior clubs and six junior clubs located around Adelaide. Competitions are run from Under 7s through to First Grade.
Representative teams are selected each year to compete in the Australian Secondary Schools Rugby League (ASSRL) National Championships at both 15 and 18 years of age respectively, competing against Western Australia, Victoria, Northern Territory and New South Wales Combined Independent Schools (NSW CIS) at both age levels. Players who compete representing South Australia each year are eligible to be selected into both the Australian Merit Squad and the Australian Affiliated States Merit Squad at the 15 Years championships, and the Australian Schoolboys as well as the Australian Affiliated States team at the 18 Years championships.
NRL SA has previously run competitions in the Spencer Gulf region, but the future of these competitions remains unclear as of 2022.
The Olympic Dam Barbarians based in Roxby Downs have played in various formats including intra club and in the Spencer Gulf competition. There have also been efforts to establish the presence of the game in areas including Coober Pedy, however there remains little competitive Rugby League in Northern SA.
The South Australian state team play in the Affiliated States Championship along with the other three affiliated states (Victoria, Tasmania, Northern Territory and Western Australia) plus the Australian Police and Australian Defence Force.
The first instance of rugby league being played in South Australia occurred during the 1914 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand, when the touring Lions beat South Australia 101-0 at Hawthorn Oval in front of 2,500 spectators.
In 1994 and 1995 the then West End XIII played Victoria at the Melbourne Cricket Ground as the curtain raiser game for the State of Origin games in those years. In 1994 the South Australian side had the privilege of being one of the first Rugby League sides to play at that venue in nearly 80 years.
A South Australian representative side has played a number of games against international touring sides, including the Australian team.[7]
The Adelaide Rams was an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Adelaide, South Australia. The team was formed in 1995 for the planned rebel Super League competition. The Rams lasted two seasons, the first in the Super League competition in 1997 and the second in the first season of the National Rugby League (NRL) in 1998. The Rams were not a successful club, winning only 13 out of 42 games. However crowd numbers in the first season were the fifth highest of any first-grade club that year, but dwindled to sixteenth in the second season. The Adelaide club was shut down at the end of the 1998 season as a result of poor on-field performances, dwindling crowd numbers, financial losses and a reduction in the number of teams in the NRL. They remain the only team from the state of South Australia to have participated in top-level rugby league in Australia.
NRL South Australia is a not-for-profit organisation responsible for administering the game of rugby league in the state of South Australia. It was formed on 28 July 1976 and is an affiliated state of the Australian Rugby League Commission.
NRL Western Australia is responsible for administering the game of rugby league football in the state of Western Australia.
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Clive Bernard Churchill AM was an Australian professional rugby league footballer and coach in the mid-20th century. An Australian international and New South Wales and Queensland interstate representative fullback, he played the majority of his club football with and later coached the South Sydney Rabbitohs. He won five premierships with the club as a player and three more as coach. Retiring as the most capped Australian Kangaroos player ever, Churchill is thus considered one of the game's greatest ever players and the prestigious Clive Churchill Medal for man-of-the-match in the NRL grand final bears his name. Churchill's attacking flair as a player is credited with having changed the role of the fullback.
Parramatta Stadium was a sports stadium in Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia, 24 km (15 mi) west of Sydney CBD. The stadium was the home ground of several western Sydney-based sports teams, at the time of closure the most notable were the Parramatta Eels of the National Rugby League and the Western Sydney Wanderers of the A-League.
Kurt Wrigley is an Australian rugby league coach and former player. He played for the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, St. George Dragons and the Adelaide Rams and has also been an assistant coach at the South Sydney Rabbitohs and Newcastle Knights.
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The 1997 Super League season was a breakaway professional rugby league football competition in Australia and the only one to be run by the News Limited-controlled Super League organisation. Eight teams which had broken away from the existing Australian Rugby League, in addition to the newly created Adelaide Rams and Hunter Mariners, competed over eighteen weekly rounds of the regular season. The top five teams then played a series of knock-out finals which culminated in a September grand final played in Brisbane between Brisbane and Cronulla.
The history of the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league football club stretches back to the pre-schism (1908) days of rugby football in Australia to the present. The club's history is one of the longest of any Australian rugby league club and they are one of the National Rugby League's last two extant foundation clubs along with the Sydney Roosters.
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The Barassi Line is an imaginary line in Australia which approximately divides areas where Australian rules football or rugby league is the most popular football code. The term was first used by historian Ian Turner in his 1978 Ron Barassi Memorial Lecture. Crowd figures, media coverage, and participation rates are heavily skewed in favour of the dominant code on either side. Most other sports are unaffected by the dichotomy; Australian cricket, for example, has maintained consistent national interest throughout its history, though soccer faces more competition for participation in areas where Australian rules is more popular.
Ben Walker is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s. A five-eighth or halfback, he played in Australia's National Rugby League for the Brisbane Broncos, Northern Eagles, Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles and the South Sydney Rabbitohs, as well as in the Super League for the London Broncos and Leeds Rhinos.
Rugby league football has been played and watched by people in the Australian state of Victoria since the early 20th century. While for most of its history there the game's popularity has been marginal due to the dominance of Australian rules football in Victoria, rugby league's popularity has rapidly increased in recent years in the state's capital of Melbourne, due mainly to the introduction of a professional Melbourne-based team in the national competition. The governing body is NRL Victoria.
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The National Rugby League is the top level rugby league competition in Australia and New Zealand. It was formed in 1998 after the merger of the Australian Super League and the Australian Rugby League. Inaugurally containing 20 teams, rationalisation cut this number down to 14 by 2000, before the competition expanded back to 16 in 2007 and 17 in 2023. Debate regarding the expansion of the competition to 18 and even 20 teams is ongoing.
The 1997 Adelaide Rams season was the Adelaide Rams' debut season as a rugby league club. They competed in the Super League's Telstra Cup and World Club Championship.
The 1998 Adelaide Rams season was the Adelaide Rams' second and final season as a rugby league club. They competed in the first season of the National Rugby League.
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