Rugby league in Australia
Rugby league in Australia | |
---|---|
Country | Australia |
Governing body | Australian Rugby League Commission |
National team(s) | Australia |
Nickname(s) | Kangaroos |
First played | 1907, Sydney, New South Wales |
Registered players | 160,691 (total registered)[1] 51,540 (adult)[2] 302,842 (junior)[2] 30,648 (school prorams)[2] 1,000,000+ (including Variants) |
Clubs | 17 Elite 32 Professional 1077 Amateur |
National competitions | |
Club competitions | |
Intrust Super Premiership Ron Massey Cup Newcastle Rugby League Illawarra Rugby League Sydney Shield Penrith District Rugby League Country Rugby League FOGS Cup FOGS Colts Challenge Foley Shield Australian Capital Territory
Storm Premiership The Murray Cup Central Highlands Rugby League
Adelaide Premiership
Smarter Than Smoking Premiership Pilbara Rugby League
Central Australian Rugby League Katherine Rugby League National Rugby League season 2010 |
Rugby league in Australia has been one of Australia's most popular
Australia has a rich history of rugby league, first taking up the sport in 1908 alongside people in Britain and New Zealand. The country has been dominant over the other rugby league-playing nations for many years, but enjoys a strong rivalry with New Zealand.
Commonly known as "league" or "football", and sometimes referred to as "the greatest game of all",
History
20th Century
By the time England's new "
A similar schism to that which occurred in England, and for similar reasons, opened up in the
Rugby league then went on to displace rugby union as the primary football code in New South Wales.
The Newcastle Rugby League was founded in 1910 with four clubs, Central Newcastle, Northern Suburbs, South Newcastle and Western Suburbs. The Illawarra Rugby League was founded in 1911 with five clubs (Dapto, Helensburgh, Mount Keira, Unanderra and Wollongong). In 1911, a Goldfields' League was formed in West Wyalong, and games were played in Tamworth, Aberdeen, and along the South Coast. The game was introduced to Orange in 1912 and spread quickly through the western districts. In 1913 branch leagues were formed at Bathurst, Dubbo, Nowra, and Tamworth. In 1914 and 1915 an amalgamation of rugby league and Australian rules football was considered and trialled.[19][20]
The
The attendance record for a rugby league match in Australia was broken in 1932 when 70,204 people saw Australia play England at the Sydney Cricket Ground.[22]
The 50th anniversary of rugby league in Australia was marked by hosting the second ever Rugby League World Cup tournament in 1957.
The attendance record for a rugby league match was re-set by the
Arthur Beetson became the first indigenous Australian to captain the national team of any sport when in 1973 he was selected to lead the Kangaroos. Also that year NSWRFL boss Kevin Humphreys negotiated rugby league's first television deal with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.[24] In 1976 Eastern Suburbs became the first rugby league team, and one of the first in Australian sport, to sport a sponsor's name on their jersey.[25]
The
In 1993 the Australian Women's Rugby League was formed. The
21st Century
In 2008, the centenary year of rugby league in Australia was celebrated, with 2008 World Cup being held and the Royal Australian Mint launching a series of uncirculated coins in November 2007 to commemorate the occasion. The percentage of indigenous players in top-level rugby league premiership was reported to have fallen from 21% in the 1990s to 11% in 2009.[28] In 2009, rugby league's popularity in Australia was confirmed as it had the highest television ratings of any sport.[29] This occurred again in 2010, with an increased number of people watching Rugby League (120 million) compared to AFL (112 million).[30] This is a season when an unprecedented scandal took place: the Melbourne Storm was found to have conducted four systematic breaches of the competition's salary cap, and had all honours gained over the previous years (including 2 premierships) nullified, were forced to pay large fines and shed enough star players to get back under the cap, all while playing the rest of the season already guaranteed the wooden spoon.
2012 saw a major re-structure of the administration of rugby league in Australia. The newly formed independent Australian Rugby League Commission took over control of the National Rugby League premiership, the State of Origin series and the Australian national team.
A 2013 report found that behind cricket, rugby league was Australia's second-most popular sport.[31] The same year a report conducted by Brand Finance valued the Penrith Panthers club at $46.2m, the highest of any Australian sporting brand, while the Brisbane Broncos had the highest brand equity.[32]
Polling conducted by
Governing body
Federal governing body
The Australian Rugby League Commission is the governing body for the sport of rugby league in Australia and also conducts all representative rugby league, including the national team and the annual State of Origin series. The Australian Rugby League's major club competition is the National Rugby League.
State based governing bodies
At state level, the game is administered by local governing bodies under the control of the ARLC. The state bodies include the
New South Wales has a second governing body, the
Club competitions
The elite professional rugby league club competition in Australia is the
Underneath the NRL, semi-professional competitions such as the
Domestic structure
Country | Australia |
---|---|
Sport | Rugby league |
Promotion and relegation | No |
National system | |
Federation | Australian Rugby League Commission |
Confederation | Asia-Pacific Rugby League |
Top division | National Rugby League |
Second division | State competitions: New South Wales Cup Queensland Cup Melbourne Rugby League NRL South Australia NRL Western Australia |
Cup competition | World Club Challenge (international) |
Regional systems | |
Top divisions |
|
Rugby league in Australia |
Tier | League | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 (National) |
National Rugby League 17 clubs (10 , 4 , 1 , 1 , 1 ) | |||||||||||||
2 (State) |
New South Wales Cup 13 clubs (11 , 1 , 1 ) |
Queensland Cup 15 clubs (13 , 1 , 1 ) |
Melbourne Rugby League 17 clubs (All ) |
NRL South Australia 5 clubs (All ) |
NRL Western Australia 6 clubs (All ) | |||||||||
3 (Regional) |
Sydney (Inc. 1 ) |
North Coast | Greater Northern | Riverina and Monaro | Western | Greater Southern | Newcastle and Central Coast | Central | North | South East | Sunraysia-Riverlands | Limestone Coast | Pilbara |
Attendances
Rugby league attendances saw their previously best year in 1995 (the year before Australia's
The year of 1996 was a turbulent one for Australian rugby league and saw what may be the largest decrease in attendance ever (2,450,776, down 611,117 down from 1995) in the ARL. This crowd decrease is attributed to the poor publicity surrounding the ongoing court cases related to the Super League War. When the Super League competition was introduced in 1997 and played alongside the ARL competition it attracted 1,111,189. The ARL for the same year saw slightly higher attendances of 1,308,824. Subsequent years of 1998, in which the merger of the SL and ARL formed the National Rugby League (NRL) and 1999 also saw increases.
The year 2000 saw club mergers and "relegations" from the NRL. The effective slashing of clubs from the first grade rugby league competition was reflected in the slashing of crowd figures as fans became disgruntled by the club they had supported for many years being torn apart.
Crowd figures did not improve until 2003, with an increase of 249,317 on the previous year, 2002. Figures increased again in 2004 and 2005. The aggregate crowd for 2005 was 2,964,288 and the average crowd figure for regular season matches was 16,468, the highest ever recorded, and 34,710 for play-offs. In 2006, attendance slightly dipped to 2,808,235. An average of 15,601 for regular season matches and 34,163 for playoffs, which was still an improvement on 2004 figures.
In 2007, the number of teams competing in first grade rugby league in Australia increased for the first time since 2002 with the re-introduction of the Gold Coast Titans in Gold Coast, Queensland.[1](Statistics do not include finals)
In 2010 Rugby League recorded its best year ever in Australia, setting a new all-time total season attendance record of 3,490,778 spectators — and with four less teams than in 1995.
Representative competitions
The State of Origin series is an annual best-of-three series of interstate matches between the two strongest rugby league states Queensland and New South Wales. The State of Origin series is one of Australia's premier sporting events, attracting a huge television audience and usually selling out the stadiums in which the games are played. From 2012–2021, an Under 20s State of Origin match was held annually on the same weekend as the Australia vs New Zealand test. This has now been changed to Under 19s.
Women's State of Origin has been held since 1999, and in 2021 an Under 19s Women's series was introduced.
City vs Country Origin is an annual Australian rugby league match that takes place in New South Wales between teams made up of NRL players representing 'City' (Sydney metropolitan area) and 'Country' (all areas in NSW outside the Sydney metropolitan area).
The Affiliated States Championship is an annual competition involving four affiliated states (Victoria, South Australia, Northern Territory and Western Australia) plus representative sides from the Australian Police and Australian Defence Force.
Demographics of the game
Total participation
In an interview for a Sydney Morning Herald article in 2021, Chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission, Peter V'landys, revealed yearly rugby league participation figures from 2015 to 2021. These participation figures show that national participation in 2019 (the last year before COVID-19 disruption) for males was 147,723 of whom 83,400 were located in New South Wales. National participation figures in 2019 for females was 14,958 with 7,108 were located in New South Wales. By the time of the article in 2021, national participation figures for males had declined to 143,792 whilst national participation for females had increased to 16,899.[1]
In 2021, a total of 30,648 students in metropolitan, regional and remote Australia from 354 schools participated in rugby league.[2] The NRL 2008 Annual report included significantly higher school participation figures suggesting either a substantial decline of 89% or a more generous definition was applied when measuring participants historically.[35]
Region/State/Territory | Overview | Registered players 2016[36] | Registered players 2023[37] |
---|---|---|---|
New South Wales | Overview | 84,763 | 83,485 |
Victoria |
Overview | 10,046 | 10,471 |
Queensland | Overview | 69,042 | 69,331 |
Western Australia | Overview | 8,484 | 8,864 |
South Australia | Overview | 944 | 2,879 |
Tasmania | Overview | 0 | 10 |
Australian Capital Territory | Overview | 1,617 | 1,743 |
Northern Territory | Overview | 2,095 | 3,866 |
National total | 176,991 | 180,600 |
Women in rugby league
The vast majority of rugby league participants are male. Of the 172,000 participants in 2004, 5% were female.[citation needed]
National participation figures released in 2021 show female participants number 16,899 accounting for 10.52% of the total national participation number of 160,691.[1]
The Australian Women's Rugby League was formed in 1993, which only achieved affiliation with the Australian Rugby League in 1998. This is in contrast to the men's competition which has existed since 1908.
The lack of female-participation in Australian rugby league can mostly be attributed to the predominantly masculine culture which discourages women from playing, and provides little financial or cultural incentive to play.
Despite this, a women's rugby league match in Sydney in 1921[38] attracted around 30,000 spectators.
Females account for a large percentage of rugby league's viewing public[
Not all the perceptions of rugby league being a mostly man game are completely true. At a junior and local level there are many women involved in volunteering positions. Women form a very important part of the local club structures. However, it is not customary for women over the age of 11 to continue playing rugby league against the boys and the exclusively women's rugby league clubs have a relatively small profile in comparison to the local boys' clubs.
Rugby league became the first mainstream professional sport in Australia to appoint a female director to a governing body, with Katie Page, the managing director of retail giant Harvey Norman, accepting an invitation to join the National Rugby League's executive board.[39]
In 2009 the Australian National Women's rugby league side (
Age
Junior participation
An analysis of 2001 New South Wales Child Health Survey by the University of New South Wales has shown that 23.2% of parents are likely to discourage their son from playing rugby league. In contrast, the next most discouraged sport was rugby union, with only 7.5% of parents willing to discourage the sport.[40] This is despite recent[when?] research by Medibank annually since 2003 that puts other sports in Australia, such as Australian Rules Football and soccer as producing more major injuries.[citation needed]
The injury rates and the public perception of rugby league as a dangerous sport are most likely the catalysts for the introduction of several initiatives by the national rugby league and ARL development in recent[when?] years to curb the number of youth playing other sports. The specific initiatives over the years includes a Safe play code, Kids to kangaroos programmes and new forms of modified rugby league, such as, Mod league and Mini Footy to help young children prepare for the full rigours of the international code. Also with such introductions are the competitions aimed at school children such as Joey league, League of legends and League Sevens, which use modified rugby league rules such as Tag and Sevens.
Whilst previous announcements in annual reports have claimed junior registrations as high as 120,667 and up to 1,000,000 children engaged in "rugby-league based physical activities in 2008"[41] (which would equate to roughly 1/3 of all primary and secondary children nationwide in that year[42]), more recent[when?] reports have identified far lower participation numbers of 160,691 total registrations[1] and 30,648 students nationwide.[2]
Senior participation
In 2008, 51,540 people participated in senior rugby league. Participation numbers amongst senior divisions tend to decline in higher age groups. While this can be expected to the nature of a physical sport, overall rugby league senior numbers have declined since the early 1990s. The ARL attributes this to game becoming more physically demanding and the increasing pressure to sustain semi-professional clubs and teams. At the same time, however, it notes that "rugby league is, generally, missing a recreational game that keeps people playing the sport when they drop out of the so-called elite stream". To combat this, the ARL is investing programs, modified rules and gala days to increase senior participation such as the ARL Masters Carnival.[35]
Location
Rugby league is by far the largest and most popular sport in New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory (which constitute 55% of the population of Australia). In these states, NRL viewership figures far outweigh those of any other sport, and crowd figures are ahead of those of Cricket and the AFL, the next largest sports in terms of attendance.
New South Wales and Queensland account for the majority of rugby league participation numbers. However, per capita figures show that Queensland and the Northern Territory rate ahead of New South Wales participation figures, making Queensland and the Northern Territory the largest participators per capita of rugby league in Australia. [citation needed]
Rugby league enjoys lower participation in other states of Australia due to competition with Australia's other premier football code
Variants
Three main variant sports of rugby league are played in Australia; Touch, OzTag, and League tag. As can be seen above, total rugby league participation including Variants is well over 1.5 million (1 million touch alone).
Touch
Touch (also known as touch football or touch rugby) is a variant of rugby league that is conducted under the direction of the Federation of International Touch (FIT). Though it shares similarities and history with rugby league, it is recognised as a sport in its own right due to its differences which have been developed over the sport's lifetime.
Touch is a variation of rugby league with the tackling of opposing players replaced by a touch. As touches must be made with minimal force, touch is therefore considered a limited-contact sport. The original basic rules of touch were established in the 1960s by members of the South Sydney Junior Rugby League Club in Sydney, Australia.[43]
The sport is governed in Australia by Touch Football Australia in partnership with the NRL, and is played by over 1 million people nationwide. Top level competitions include the NRL Touch Premiership and the National Touch League.
OzTag
OzTag is a non-contact form of rugby league, and can be seen as a variation of British tag rugby. Cronulla Sharks and St George Dragons halfback Perry Haddock introduced the sport in Australia while coaching the 1992 St George Jersey Flegg side. Together with Chris Parkes, the two took the sport to fields across Australia. Today, it is played by over 200,000 players in organised leagues across the country.
League Tag
League Tag replaces tackling with the removal of one of two tags carried on an opponent's hips, attached directly to specific League Tag shorts with Velcro patches, but otherwise retains almost all other rules of traditional rugby league (such as kicking). A number of additional rules are also added relating to the specific issues associated with a tag based game.
League Tag is the primary female version of rugby league administered by the Country Rugby League. The NSWRL continues to administer the game across the state post the NSWRL-CRL merger in 2019.
The national team
The Australian national rugby league team represents Australia at
In popular culture
Rugby league has been described as "an iconic Australian sport"[44] and has therefore featured prominently in Australian popular culture. Famous Australian writers throughout history such as Banjo Paterson, Thomas Keneally and Kenneth Slessor have produced literature about the game.[45]
Media coverage
Due to the widespread interest in rugby league games played, including the State of Origin series, match results, scorelines and reports of injuries to key players, are comprehensively carried by many Australian newspapers. These include the major national daily newspapers; in general match results and reports are published on the weekend of the game and on Mondays, and commentary continues throughout the week, with rugby league-related stories usually to be found in the sporting section of the major newspapers every week-day.
All premiership games are broadcast on television, either free-to-air or cable. Online, the ABC, as well as major newsgroups provide articles on Rugby League, bylined in general by a reporter who is exclusively a sports correspondent. Interest in rugby league is highest in New South Wales and Queensland; as well, many of the large number of Australian expatriates living and working overseas are avidly interested in the season's games, and are able to ensure that they are kept up-to-date by accessing on-line versions of stories provided by major media organisations. Formerly, the official publication for the NRL was Big League, however, production was suspended in 2020 due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, and hasn't been renewed since.[46]
The
A list of major newspapers which publish rugby league-related stories includes
ABC radio's Grandstand programme broadcasts live rugby league games on the weekends. Sydney radio station, 2GB, also broadcasts live NRL matches Friday to Sunday (with their Continuous Call Team).
Rugby league was the biggest television sport in Australia in 2022.[48]
See also
- Sport in Australia
- Rugby League Competitions in Australia
- Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame
- List of Australian rugby league stadiums by capacity
References
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{{cite web}}
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Further reading
- Ian Heads & David Middleton (2008). A centenary of Rugby League 1908-2008: the definitive story of the game in Australia. Pan Macmillan. ISBN 9781405038300.
- ISBN 9781876944643.