South Australia was once home to a professional club, the Adelaide Rams from 1997 to 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 New South Wales Rugby League Ltd (NSWRL) is an Australian rugby league football competition operator in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory and is a member of the Australian Rugby League Commission. It was registered on 21 December 1983 and succeeded the New South Wales Rugby Football League which had been formed in Sydney on 8 August 1907. The NSWRFL and then NSWRL operated Sydney's, then New South Wales' and eventually Australia's premier rugby league club competition from 1908 to 1994. The organisation administers the New South Wales rugby league team.
The St. George Dragons are an Australian rugby league football club from the St George District in Sydney, New South Wales that played in the top level New South Wales competition and Australian Rugby League competitions from the 1921 until the 1997 ARL season, as well as the unified 1998 National Rugby League season. On 23 September 1998, the club formed a joint venture with the Illawarra Steelers, creating the St. George Illawarra Dragons team which competed in the 1999 NRL season and continues to compete in the league today. As a stand-alone club, it fields teams in the NSWRL underage men's and women's competitions, Harold Matthews Cup, S.G. Ball, and Tarsha Gale Cup.
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.
Andrew "ET" Ettingshausen is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. He played his first grade Australian club football for the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, retiring at the end of the 2000 NRL season having played 328 first grade games for the club, the NSWRL/ARL/SL/NRL record for most games at a single club. This record stood for ten years, before ultimately being broken by Darren Lockyer for the Broncos in 2010.
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.
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