1.
Newtown Jets
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The Newtown Jets are an Australian rugby league football club based in Newtown, a suburb of Sydneys inner west. They currently compete in the New South Wales Cup competition, having left the top grade after the 1983 NSWRFL season, the Jets home ground is Henson Park, and their team colours are blue and white. Established in 1908, Newtown were one of the members of the New South Wales Rugby Football League. They competed continuously in the NSWRFL premiership until their departure in 1983, over this period they won the competition three times. This made Newtown the second rugby league club in Australia. The second club, Glebe, was formed on 9 January 1908, when the Dirty Reds were controversially excluded from the NSWRL Premiership in 1929, Newtown became the oldest Australian club. There is some argument however over whether or not Newtown was actually the first Rugby league club in Australia, the clubs website stands by this claim, however other sources, most notably Terry Williams book Out of the Blue, The History of Newtown RLFC, dispute this claim. Rugby league historian Sean Fagan similarly holds that the date of 14 January 1908 is the foundation day. The minutes of the meeting held by Newtowns Board shows the date as 8 January. Newtown played in the NSWRFL Premiership from 1908–83 and they won the 1910 NSWRFL Premiership after drawing the final was enough to see them win due to being minor premiers. A Newtown winger, Jack Scott, was the first to score a try in the New South Wales Rugby League premiership. Known as the Newtown Bluebags for most of its lifetime, the club adopted the Jets nickname in 1973, or perhaps due to the close proximity of the clubs home ground, Henson Park, to the major east/west flight path for the airport. The club won premierships in 1910,1933 and 1943, and finished second in 1913,1914,1929,1944, Jack Gibson took over as Newtown coach in 1973. Gibson picked his team solely on form, irrespective of seniority, the Wills Cup Final was played under floodlights at the old Sydney Sports Ground on St Patricks day before a crowd of 13,180. At half time St George were up 15-2 and looked certain to win, the 1981 Newtown team, which played in the clubs last NSWRL premiership grand final, included the legends of game Tommy Raudonikis and Phil Gould. It was coached by Warren Ryan, financial pressures forced the team out of the NSWRL Premiership at the end of 1983. The club continued to seek readmission, pursuing various different alternatives and this plan involved a name change for the club, to the Newtown-Campbelltown Jets. The proposal, including a new logo with the new name on the royal blue jersey, was approved by the football club directors
2.
Arthur McCabe
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Arthur John Michael Mackker McCabe was a pioneer Australian rugby union and rugby league player. He represented for Australian in rugby union at the 1908 Summer Olympics, a brilliant fly-half, Mackker McCabe was a member of the Australian rugby union team which won the gold medal with McCabe scoring two tries in the gold medal victory. While he toured the US and England with the Wallabies in the tour prior to the Olympics his gold medal match was his sole Australian representative appearance. On his return to Australia he joined the code of rugby league along with 13 of his Olympic teammates. He played for five seasons with the South Sydney Rabbitohs finishing his career with a win in 1914. Despite representing for New South Wales in rugby league in 1910 he was unsuccessful in his bid to become a rugby international. For the season 1910, he was the NSW Rugby Football Leagues top try scorer and he was so highly praised by the press, they dubbed him The Will-O-The-Wisp, a phrase that became synonymous with McCabe. Arthur McCabe died suddenly of an attack at his home in Morehead Street, Redfern on 30 July 1924. A large funeral was held for Mackker McCabe and was attended by many ex Wallaby players and he was buried at Rookwood Cemetery on 31 July 1924. Andrews, Malcolm The ABC of Rugby League, Austn Broadcasting Corpn, Sydney profile
3.
Dally Messenger
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Herbert Henry Dally Messenger was one of Australasias first professional rugby footballers, recognised as one of the greatest-ever players in either code. Messenger, or The Master as he was dubbed, represented his country in two rugby union tests and seven rugby league tests. Messenger had a build, and while standing only about 172 cm in height, he was a powerful runner of the ball. He was a teetotaller and non-smoker during his career and other than breakfast, Messenger was born in the Sydney waterfront suburb of Balmain, New South Wales, and grew up in another of Sydneys waterfront suburbs, Double Bay, where his father owned a boat shed. He also spent some time living with an aunt in South Melbourne, Victoria, in Sydney, Messenger attended Double Bay Public School in the citys eastern suburbs. It was here that he honed his rugby skills, while also playing cricket and indulging in his other great sporting love. Messenger worked, too, at his fathers boat shed, by this juncture, he had gained the nickname of Dally. Fortunately, little Herbert Henry shed his pot belly as he grew older, together with the e from the spelling of his nickname, Messenger first took up competitive rugby in 1900, playing for a local rugby union club called the Warrigals in a semi-social club competition. In 1905 he finally began playing for Easts in the clubs second-grade team, in that same season, he also purportedly played Australian rules football club in a number of first-grade matches in the Sydney competition. Messenger began the 1906 season in first grade with Easts as a standoff and he swiftly won a following amongst the clubs supporters due to his mesmeric ball skills, cheeky tricks, blistering acceleration and accurate short- and long-kicking game off either foot. Messenger moved to what would become his customary position of following his selection there for the New South Wales team in 1906. By the time of his Wallaby debut in 1907, he had made that position his own, in the book Viewless Winds, the 1906 representative footballer Paddy Moran wrote that Messengers play was full of surprises, unorthodox, flash and directed largely by the unconscious mind. He said that Messenger never became a slave to copybook practices because his instinct enabled him to see, Moran compared him to Bradman in terms of their mutual ability to instantaneously co-ordinate their bodies into the right position in apparently ample time before the ball would arrive. When talk of a rugby competition, or a Rugby League, was being aired. He was approached by a consortium that included Test cricketer, Victor Trumper with friend J. J. Giltinan and he signed on with the new professional code in 1907. As the premier rugby footballer of the time, Messengers signing is considered the moment in the substantiation of rugby league. After he became a league player, Messengers rugby games were struck from the record books of the New South Wales Rugby Union. Messenger played in the series against a professional New Zealand team, the All Golds as they were referred to
4.
Sydney Roosters
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The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. Only the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the St. George Dragons have won more premierships, the club holds the record for having the most wins and the second greatest margin of victory in a match in Australian rugby league history. The Eastern Suburbs DRLFC is the club to have played in each and every season at the elite level. Coached by Trent Robinson along with captains Boyd Cordner and Jake Friend, as such, much of the clubs merchandise and paraphernalia, especially those marketed directly to long-serving and dedicated members, includes the insignia ESDRLFC. Indeed, the suburb of Sydney, postcode 2000, falls entirely within the boundaries of the ESDRLFC. Unofficially nicknamed the Tricolours due to their red, white and blue playing strip, Eastern Suburbs won its first match, however, the club rapidly declined and failed to win the premiership for the next nine seasons. Eastern Suburbs missed the finals once from 1926 to 1942, and in time won four titles. During this period, Dave Brown set several point-scoring records that still stand, in 1935, the team lost just one game, and recorded the highest winning margin in their history, an 87–7 victory over Canterbury. In 1936, Eastern Suburbs became one of five teams in history to remain undefeated for an entire season. They are the club to remain unbeaten for two consecutive seasons. Despite claiming the premiership in 1945, Eastern Suburbs failed to make the finals for the seven seasons. A runners-up finish in 1960 was the closest the club came to claiming the premiership during this era, Eastern Suburbs were soundly defeated 31–6 in the grand final that year, by the famous record-beating St George outfit. In 1966, the fell to new depths and was winless for the first time in its history. It was also the last occasion in which the Roosters won the wooden spoon until claiming it again in the 2009 season. It ended a run for Eastern Suburbs, from 1963 to 1966, they won 8 of 72 matches, finishing second to last in 1964. The club underwent a renaissance in 1967 after appointing Jack Gibson as coach, and introducing a new emblem on the playing jerseys, from 1972 to 1982, the Roosters won four minor premierships and played in four grand finals, winning two consecutively. Gibson, now dubbed as Super Coach, returned to lead the team from 1974 to 1976, in 1974 and 1975, the team won 39 of 44 matches, both minor premierships, and both grand finals and set a premiership record of 19 consecutive wins. Between 1984 and 1995, the Roosters reached the semi-finals once, the club came close to reaching the premiership in 1987 under coach and favourite son Arthur Beetson, being defeated by eventual premiers Manly in a bruising major semi-final, 10–6
5.
1909 NSWRFL season
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The 1909 New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership was the second season of Sydneys top-level rugby league football competition, Australias first. Eight teams contested during the season for the premiership and the Royal Agricultural Society Challenge Shield, seven teams from Sydney and one team from Newcastle, New South Wales. At the begninning of the season, the nearly broke NSWRFL had met and kicked out its founders Henry Hoyle, Victor Trumper, part-way through the season, Edward Larkin was appointed full-time secretary of the NSWRFL. Also in 1909 north of the border, the Queensland Rugby Football League got its club competition started for the rebel football code of rugby league. The teams that made up the 1909 premiership season were the same as the 1908 season with the exception of Cumberland who were dissolved, being unable to field a competitive team. Seven of Cumberlands players ended up going to Western Suburbs the following year, Glebe included Peter Moko, the first player of Polynesian background to play in the premiership. Newcastle exited the League at the end of the season, during the season the New Zealand national side toured in June–July, followed by the second New Zealand Māori rugby league tour of Australia. Numbers highlighted in green indicate that the finished the round inside the top 4. Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the team finished first on the ladder in that round, numbers highlighted in red indicates the team finished in last place on the ladder in that round In 1909 semi-finals were played amongst the four highest placed teams. Top two finishers South Sydney and Balmain were able to win their respective semi-finals, but unknown to Balmain, South Sydney turned up ready to play. The final was deemed to be a forfeit as a result, requests from Balmain for the match to be played at a later date were refused by the League. Conflict over whether there was an agreement between the two not to play a final caused a deep seated resentment towards Souths by Balmain which lasted many years. It was the most dramatic action ever taken by a league club – the 1909 Balmain team forfeited the premiership Final. The seeds of the events of 1909 lay in the years before rugby league was formed, back when Balmain. In 1900 the Metropolitan Rugby Union replaced the clubs of the 1800s with district clubs. This was done to more evenly distribute the talent between clubs, and to build upon the support for suburban based clubs. Between 1900 and 1906, Souths and Balmain had met 14 times, while most clubs trained indoors at night or on fields under moonlight, Souths and Easts had exclusive use of the lights of the Sports Ground. Understandably, other clubs, particularly Balmain and Norths felt that Souths, the newspapers and opposing fans had come to call the Balmain club “the Balmainiacs”
6.
1911 NSWRFL season
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The 1911 New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership was the fourth season of Sydney’s top-level rugby league club competition, Australia’s first. Eight teams from across the city contested during the season for the premiership, the League’s turnover for the 1911 season was £15,889, up £2,477 on the previous year. For the first time in its history, the premiership consisted of the same teams for two consecutive seasons in a row. The same eight teams from the 1910 season played in 1911, however, because both Eastern Suburbs and South Sydney finished on equal premiership points in second place, a playoff was used to decide who would play minor premiers Glebe in the final. Eastern Suburbs ended up beating local rivals South Sydney 23-10 at the Sports Ground in front of 14,000 people on September 2,1911, the following week, Eastern Suburbs beat Glebe in front of 16,000 at the Agricultural Ground 22-9. Glebe immediately exercised their right for a rematch the week for a match to be held at the Agricultural Ground on September 16,1911. After Glebe won the toss, Dally Messenger kicked off at 3, Glebe winger Cubitt scored early and Easts were only able to post a penalty goal in the first half and trailed 5–2 at the break. The referee was Tom McMahon who in the first half sent off Glebe’s Sid Pert and Rooster Larry OMalley, early in the second half, Cubitt scored again for Glebe to take an 8–4 lead. However, in the ten minutes, Eastern Suburbs were able to score a try after a high kick was misjudged by the Glebe fullback. Eastern Suburbs 11 defeated Glebe 8 On June 22, the first game of league was played on the Sydney Cricket Ground. NSW defeated New Zealand in the match, 35–10. com. au
Newtown[1] (1st title)
Arthur McCabe (71)
Dally Messenger (18)
Balmain
Glebe
Annandale
North Sydney
Western Suburbs
