Super League was an Australian rugby league football administrative body that conducted professional competition in Australia and New Zealand for one season in 1997. Along with Super League of Europe, it was created by News Corporation during the Super League war which arose following an unsuccessful attempt to purchase the pay television rights to rugby league in Australia. After two years of legal battles the competition was played for a single season in 1997 alongside the rival Australian Rugby League (ARL) competition before the two merged in 1998 to form the National Rugby League (NRL).
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 Western Australia is responsible for administering the game of rugby league football in the state of Western Australia.
Robbie Kearns is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s, and 2000s. An Australia international and New South Wales State of Origin representative forward, he played for the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, Western Reds and the Melbourne Storm.
AdrianWilliamsBarich is a sports presenter for television and radio, and a former Australian rules footballer for the West Coast Eagles and Perth Demons, and rugby league player.
Matt Geyer is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer. A New South Wales State of Origin representative wing, he played his club football primarily with the Melbourne Storm of the National Rugby League competition, winning the 1999 premiership with them. He also represented City Origin and played for the Western Reds.
Sport is an important part of the culture of Western Australia.
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 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 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 both sides.
The 1995 ARL premiership was the 88th season of professional rugby league football in Australia, and the first to be run by the Australian Rugby League following the hand-over of the Premiership's administration by the New South Wales Rugby League. For the first time since 1988, the Premiership expanded again, with the addition of two new clubs from Queensland; North Queensland Cowboys, based in Townsville, and South Queensland Crushers, based in Brisbane. And for the first time ever outside the borders of New South Wales and Queensland, and indeed, Australia, the addition of two other new clubs from Western Australia, Western Reds, based in Perth, and from Auckland, Auckland Warriors, based in Auckland. This saw a total of twenty teams, the largest number in the League's history, compete during the regular season for the J J Giltinan Shield, which was followed by a series of play-off finals between the top eight teams that culminated in a grand final for the Winfield Cup between the newly re-branded Sydney Bulldogs and the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles.
Shayne McMenemy is a former Ireland international rugby league footballer who played as a back rower in the 1990s and 2000s. He played club football in Australia for the Western Suburbs Magpies and WA Reds, and in England for the Rochdale Hornets, Oldham, Halifax and Hull FC.
John Kevin Dorahy, also known by the nickname of "Joe Cool", is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer and coach. He played in the Australian New South Wales Rugby League premiership and also represented for NSW Country, New South Wales Origin and Australia. Dorahy later played and coached in the English Championship, and coached in the Super League. He began his playing career at fullback and in later years moved into the centres. As coach of Wigan, he is one of a select few to have a guided his club to the league championship and Challenge Cup 'double'.
Rugby league in Western Australia is played at amateur level, but attracts an audience particularly for the State of Origin series.
Peter Mulholland was an Australian rugby league football coach. He coached ARL premiership expansion club Western Reds in their first two seasons before moving to France to take up the coaching position of Super League expansion team, Paris Saint-Germain. Before moving to the Bulldogs, Mulholland was Assistant Coach from 1999 to 2001 and Director of Recruitment (2002–2008) at the Penrith Panthers.
The Goldfields Titans was a semi professional rugby league club based in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Western Australia, Australia. They compete in the Western Australia Rugby League's Harvey Norman Cup first grade competition and home games are played at the Goldfields Oasis Playing Fields.
The 1998 Melbourne Storm season was the first in the club's history. They competed in the NRL's inaugural Premiership and their first season was a major surprise to many, with the new team reaching the top of the ladder in Round 15 and finishing the regular season in 3rd place, only one win behind minor premiers Brisbane. Adopting coach Chris Anderson's new "flat-line" attack, the big Storm forwards laid a platform for their young halves Scott Hill and Brett Kimmorley to wreak havoc on opposing teams. Melbourne's front-rowers Glenn Lazarus, Robbie Kearns and Rodney Howe were all selected to play for New South Wales in the 1998 State of Origin series. A late season injury to captain Lazarus combined with a lack of Finals experience saw the Storm knocked out in the play-offs. The club though had proven they were to be taken seriously, and they had easily produced the best debut season of any new team in the game's history.
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 West Coast Pirates Rugby League Football Club, officially referred to as The Cash Converters West Coast Pirates for sponsorship reasons, are a rugby league football club based in Perth, Western Australia. The club was founded by the Western Australian Rugby League as a bid for Perth to rejoin an expanded National Rugby League in 2026. If successful, the Pirates would play out of HBF Park, with the support of the Western Australian Government through a $96 million upgrade to the venue.
