The Australia national rugby league team, the Kangaroos, have represented Australia in senior men's rugby league football competition since the establishment of the game in Australia in 1908. Administered by the Australian Rugby League Commission, the Kangaroos are ranked third in the IRL Men's World Rankings. The team is the most successful in Rugby League World Cup history, having won the competition 12 times, and contested 16 of the 17 finals, only failing to reach the final in the 1954 inaugural tournament. Only five nations have beaten Australia in test matches, and Australia has an overall win percentage of 69%.
Darren James Lockyer is an Australian television commentator and former professional rugby league footballer. Lockyer was an Australian international and Queensland State representative captain, who played his entire professional career with the Brisbane Broncos.
Laurie William Daley AM, also known by the nicknames of "Lozza" and "Loz", is an Australian professional rugby league football coach and a former player who played as a centre and five-eighth in the late 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.
The State of Origin series is an annual best-of-three rugby league series between two Australian state representative sides, the New South Wales Blues and the Queensland Maroons.
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.
Bradley Scott Fittler, also known by the nickname of "Freddy", is an Australian rugby league commentator, television presenter, and former player.
Bradley Carnegie Thorn is a New Zealand Australian rugby union coach and former rugby league and rugby union footballer. Born in New Zealand, he represented Australia in rugby league and New Zealand in rugby union in a twenty-two year career as a player, starting at age nineteen and finishing at age forty-one. He was the head coach of the Australian Super Rugby Pacific team, the Queensland Reds. Thorn is their second longest-serving coach in history and their longest serving coach in the professional era.
The New South Wales rugby league team has represented the Australian state of New South Wales in rugby league football since the sport's beginnings there in 1907. Also known as the Blues due to their sky blue jerseys. This annual event is a series of three games competing for the State of Origin shield. As of 2023, the team is coached by Michael Maguire and captained by James Tedesco.
This article contains information on rugby league played in 2006. The season commenced with the World Club Challenge in England in February and concluded with the Tri-Nations Final in Australia in November.
The Queensland rugby league team represents the Australian state of Queensland in rugby league football. Nicknamed the "Maroons" after the colour of their jersey, they play three times a year against arch-rivals New South Wales in the State of Origin series. The team is currently coached by Billy Slater and captained by Daly Cherry-Evans, and is administered by the Queensland Rugby League. They play all of their home matches at Brisbane's Lang Park.
Brett Mullins is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s, and early 2000s. A New South Wales State of Origin and Australian international representative back, he played his club football for Australian clubs the Canberra Raiders and Sydney Roosters, and for English club, the Leeds Rhinos. He was described as "one of the most exciting attacking weapons in rugby league."
Noel Harvey "Crusher" Cleal is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer and coach. A destructive second-row for the Manly Sea Eagles, he also represented New South Wales in the State of Origin Series and the Australian national rugby league team.
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 the Brisbane Broncos and Cronulla.
The 1997 State of Origin series was the 16th year that the annual best-of-three series of interstate rugby league football matches between the Queensland and New South Wales representative teams was contested entirely under 'state of origin' selection rules. Like the 1995 State of Origin series, players from clubs aligned with Super League were not eligible for selection. Gone were established players Laurie Daley, Allan Langer, Ricky Stuart, Wendell Sailor, Glenn Lazarus, Bradley Clyde, Gorden Tallis and Kevin Walters - all representing their respective states in the newly invented Super League Tri-series.
The 1995 State of Origin series was the 14th annual three-game series between the Queensland and New South Wales representative rugby league teams. Due to the Australian Rugby League's ongoing conflicts with Super League, they ruled that no Super League-aligned players were eligible for State of Origin selection in 1995. This appeared to hurt Queensland, eliminating their mostly Brisbane Broncos back line, and they were not widely expected to win the series. However, they won 3–0, their first series win since 1991. Novice Queensland coach Paul Vautin made only one player change to his squad during the three game series. This series once again saw State of Origin football venture to Melbourne, after an enthusiastic Melbourne crowd packed the MCG to watch game two of the 1994 series. Although the crowd in Melbourne was not as high as 1994's then-record origin crowd of 87,161, it was still a success, attracting 52,994 spectators and furthering the case for a first grade team in Melbourne.
The 1982 State of Origin series was the first annual three-match series between New South Wales and Queensland to be played entirely under "state of origin" selection rules. After the matches in 1980 and 1981 that trialed the concept, 'Origin' was fully embraced in 1982, with no matches using the previous seventy-four years' residential-based selection rules ever played again.
Ken Nagas is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s. He played for the Canberra Raiders of the National Rugby League. Nagas primarily played on the wing.
The 1995 Trans-Tasman Test series was an international rugby league, three test series played in Australia between the Australian Kangaroos and New Zealand national rugby league team. As the series was played in the middle of the 1995 ARL season and most of the Kiwis selected came from Australian Rugby League (ARL) clubs, New Zealand did not play in any tour matches while in Australia, but prior to the series against Australia they had a two test home series against France.
The 1988 Rugby League World Cup final was the conclusive game of the 1985–1988 Rugby League World Cup tournament and was played between New Zealand and Australia on 9 October 1988 at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand. Australia won the final by 25 points to 12 in front of a New Zealand rugby league record attendance of 47,363. Australia, the defending champions, won the Rugby League World Cup for the 6th time.
Cameron Murray is an Australian professional rugby league footballer who plays as a lock forward and captains the South Sydney Rabbitohs in the NRL.
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