Rugby league in South Australia | |
---|---|
Governing body | NRL South Australia |
First played | 1947, Adelaide, South Australia |
Registered players | 2,766 [1] 12,000+ (including variants) [2] |
Audience records | |
Single match | 48,613 (2023 State of Origin series) |
Rugby league in South Australia describes the sport of Rugby league, which is played at amateur level in the state of South Australia. Rugby League has been played in South Australia since the 1940s. The governing body is NRL South Australia.
South Australia was once home to a professional club, the Adelaide Rams from 1997–1998.
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.
The South Australian Rugby League is responsible for administering the game of rugby league in South Australia. South Australia is an Affiliated State of the overall Australian governing body the Australian Rugby League.
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.
The top-level competition in the SARL is alo known as NRLSA Metro and is sponsored as the Sportcentre Cup.
Club Colours | Club Name | Club Moniker | District |
---|---|---|---|
Senior | |||
Adelaide Plains | Brothers | Adelaide | |
Central Districts | Roosters | Elizabeth | |
Eastern | Eels | Unley | |
MEC | Black Swans | Murray Bridge | |
South Adelaide | Bulldogs | Mitchell Park | |
Western District | Warriors | Henley Beach | |
Junior Only | |||
Adelaide Hills | Tigers | Mount Barker |
Colours | Club | District |
---|---|---|
Eels Yellow | Adelaide, South Australia | |
Henley Beach Raiders | Henley Beach, South Australia | |
Mitchell Park Tigers | Adelaide, South Australia | |
Northern Districts Dragons | North Adelaide, South Australia | |
Port Adelaide Cougars | Adelaide, South Australia | |
River City Knights | Adelaide, South Australia | |
TEC Titans | Adelaide, South Australia |
The Limestone Coast Rugby League is a competition co-administered by NRL SA and NRL Victoria. [5]
Club | Moniker | Home Ground | District |
---|---|---|---|
Blue Lake | Knights | Apollo Soccer Grounds | Mount Gambier, South Australia |
Gunditjmara | Bulls | Deakin University | Warrnambool, Victoria |
Naracoorte | Jets | Naracoorte United Soccer Ground | Naracoorte, South Australia |
Stawell | Mounties | North Park | Stawell, Victoria |
Warrnambool | Raiders | Friendly Societies Park | Warrnambool, Victoria |
Colours | Club | District |
---|---|---|
Horsham | Panthers | Horsham, Victoria |
North Warrnambool | Warriors | Warrnambool, Victoria |
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.
Colours | Club | District |
---|---|---|
Olympic Dam | Barbarians | Roxby Downs |
Port Augusta | Goannas | Port Augusta |
Port Pirie | Devils/Pirates | Port Pirie |
Whyalla | Steelers | Whyalla |
The South Australian state team play in the Affiliated States Championship along with the other three affiliated states (Victoria, 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. [6]
Game | Date | Result | Venue | City/Town | Attendance | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 24 May 1914 | Great Britain def. South Australia 101–0 | Hawthorn Oval | Adelaide | 2,500 | 1914 Great Britain Lions tour |
2 | 11 August 1948 | Australia def. South Australia 96–5 | Hawthorn Oval | Adelaide | 4,000 | 1948–49 Kangaroo Tour |
3 | 18 May 1955 | France def. South Australia 48–10 | 1,074 | 1955 French Tour |
The following are the largest rugby league crowds in South Australia.
Year | Home | Away | Venue | Crowd |
---|---|---|---|---|
2023 | Queensland | New South Wales | Adelaide Oval | 48,613 |
1991 | St. George Dragons | Balmain Tigers | Adelaide Oval | 28,884 |
1997 | Adelaide Rams | Hunter Mariners | Adelaide Oval | 27,435 |
2020 | New South Wales | Queensland | Adelaide Oval | 25,218 |
2017 | Sydney Roosters | Melbourne Storm | Adelaide Oval | 21,492 |
The following South Australian players have played in the National Rugby League.
This article incorporates content from the South Australian Rugby League article.
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 North Sydney Bears is an Australian rugby league football club based in North Sydney, New South Wales. The club competes in the New South Wales Cup, having exited the National Rugby League following the 1999 NRL season after 90 years in the premier rugby league competition in Australia. North Sydney is based on Sydney's Lower North Shore, and has played at North Sydney Oval since 1910. There have been on-going bids to resurrect the club in the NRL as either The Bears, based in Perth and Sydney, or as the Central Coast Bears, based at Gosford.
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.
Rugby league in Australia has been one of Australia's most popular sports since it started being played there in 1908. It is the dominant winter football code in the states of New South Wales and Queensland. In 2022, it was the most watched sport on Australian television with an aggregate audience of 137.3 million viewers. The premier club competition is the National Rugby League (NRL), which features ten teams from New South Wales, four teams from Queensland, and one team each from Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The premier representative competition is the annual Rugby league State of Origin featuring two sides, the New South Wales Blues and the Queensland Maroons is often referred to as "Australian sport's greatest rivalry", it is one of Australia's premier sporting events, attracting huge interest and television audiences.
The 1998 NRL season was the 91st season of professional rugby league football in Australia, and the inaugural season of the newly formed National Rugby League (NRL). After the 1997 season, in which the Australian Rugby League and Super League organisations ran separate competitions parallel to each other, they joined to create a reunited competition in the NRL. The first professional rugby league club to be based in Victoria, the Melbourne Storm was introduced into the League, and with the closure of the Hunter Mariners, Western Reds and South Queensland Crushers, twenty teams competed for the premiership, which culminated in the 1998 NRL grand final between the Brisbane Broncos and Canterbury-Bankstown. It was also the final season for the Illawarra Steelers and the St. George Dragons as their own clubs prior to their merger into the St. George-Illawarra Dragons for the 1999 NRL season
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Rod Reddy is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer and coach. He played in the NSWRL Premiership for the St. George Dragons between 1972 and 1983 and the Illawarra Steelers between 1984 and 1985. He also represented Queensland in the State of Origin and the Australia national rugby league team. He coached the Adelaide Rams for their only two seasons.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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