1973 NSWRFL season

1973 NSWRFL season
1973 NSWRFL season
Teams 12
Premiers Manly Sea Eagles colours.svg Manly-Warringah (2nd title)
Minor premiers Manly Sea Eagles colours.svg Manly-Warringah (3rd title)
Matches played 139
Points scored 4234 (total)
30.46 (per match)
Attendance 1,390,810 (total)
10,006 (per match)
Top point scorer(s) St. George colours.svg Graeme Langlands (183)
Top try scorer(s) Manly Sea Eagles colours.svg Bob Fulton (18)

The 1973 New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership was the sixty-sixth season of the rugby league competition based in Sydney. Twelve district clubs from across the city, including six foundation clubs, competed for the J J Giltinan Shield and WD & HO Wills Cup during the season, which culminated in a grand final between Manly-Warringah and Cronulla-Sutherland. This season also saw the introduction of an under-23s competition as well as a five-team finals series (rather than the previous four).[1]

Contents

Season summary

Twenty-two regular season rounds were played from March until August, resulting in in a top four of Manly, Cronulla, St. George and Newtown who went on to battle it out in the finals.

The 1973 Rothmans Medal was awarded to Cronulla-Sutherland forward Ken Maddison. Rugby League Week awarded their player of the year award to Manly-Warringah's halfback Johnny Mayes.

The 1973 season also saw the retirement from the League of future Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame inductee, Ken Irvine.

Teams

From 1973 onwards, Newtown were known as the Newtown Jets[2]

Balmain home jersey 1963.svg
Balmain
Canterbury home jersey 1969.svg
Canterbury-Bankstown
Cronulla home jersey 1970.svg
Cronulla-Sutherland
Eastern Suburbs home jersey 1953.svg
Eastern Suburbs
Manly Sea Eagles home jersey 1965.svg
Manly-Warringah
Newtown Jets home jersey 1972.svg
Newtown Jets
North Sydney Bears home jersey 1951.svg
North Sydney
Parramatta Eels home jersey 1957.svg
Parramatta
Penrith Panthers home jersey 1973.svg
Penrith
South Sydney home jersey 1908.svg
South Sydney
St. George home jersey 1945.svg
St. George
Western Suburbs home jersey 1959.svg
Western Suburbs

Ladder

Team Pld W D L PF PA PD Pts
1 Manly Sea Eagles colours.svg Manly 22 17 1 4 500 226 +274 35
2 Cronulla colours.svg Cronulla 22 17 0 5 389 219 +170 34
3 St. George colours.svg St. George 22 15 0 7 372 213 +159 30
4 Newtown colours.svg Newtown Jets 22 14 0 8 358 224 +134 28
5 Canterbury colours.svg Canterbury 22 12 1 9 369 269 +100 25
6 Eastern Suburbs colours.svg Eastern Suburbs 22 12 0 10 415 314 +101 24
7 South Sydney colours.svg South Sydney 22 11 1 10 345 367 -22 23
8 North Sydney colours.svg North Sydney 22 7 1 14 239 350 -101 15
9 Western Suburbs colours.svg Western Suburbs 22 7 0 15 310 414 -104 14
10 Balmain colours.svg Balmain 22 7 0 15 254 495 -241 14
11 Parramatta colours.svg Parramatta 22 6 0 16 275 492 -217 12
12 Panthers colours.svg Penrith 22 5 0 17 272 525 -253 10

Finals

Home Score Away Match Information
Date and Time Venue Referee Crowd
Qualifying Finals
Cronulla colours.svg Cronulla 18-0 St. George colours.svg St. George 25 August 1973 Sydney Cricket Ground Keith Page 37,778
Newtown colours.svg Newtown 13-2 Canterbury colours.svg Canterbury 26 August 1973 Sydney Sports Ground Keith Page 17,778
Semi Finals
Manly Sea Eagles colours.svg Manly-Warringah 14-4 Cronulla colours.svg Cronulla 1 September 1973 Sydney Cricket Ground Keith Page 41,898
St. George colours.svg St. George 12-12 Newtown colours.svg Newtown Jets 2 September 1973 Sydney Cricket Ground Keith Page 24,390
St. George colours.svg St. George 5-8 Newtown colours.svg Newtown Jets 4 September 1973 Sydney Sports Ground Keith Page 27,791
Preliminary Final
Cronulla colours.svg Cronulla 20-11 Newtown colours.svg Newtown Jets 8 September 1973 Sydney Cricket Ground Keith Page 30,649
Grand Final
Manly Sea Eagles colours.svg Manly-Warringah 10-7 Cronulla colours.svg Cronulla 15 September 1973 Sydney Cricket Ground Keith Page 52,044

Grand Final

Manly-Warringah Position Cronulla
Graham Eadie FB Warren Fisher
Ken Irvine WG Ray Corcoran
Ray Branighan CE Steve Rogers
Bob Fulton CE Eric Archer
Max Brown WG Bob Wear
Ian Martin FE Chris Wellman
John Mayes HB Tommy Bishop (c)
Bill Hamilton PR Cliff Watson
Fred Jones (c) HK Ron Turner
John O'Neill PR Graham Bowen
Peter Peters SR Ken Maddison
Terry Randall SR John Maguire
Malcolm "Mal" Reilly LK Greg Pierce
John Bucknall Bench Rick Bourke
Ron Willey Coach Tommy Bishop

After Cronulla's 14-4 loss in the major semi-final, Manly expected the Sharks would be fired up for the Grand Final. And they were. Ian Heads wrote in the Sunday Telegraph the next day that It was a Grand Final as tough and dirty as any bar-room brawl.[3] Alan Clarkson wrote in the Sun Herald The fare served up in the first half belonged in the Colosseum.[4] The first half was not how the game's administrators would have wished to show-case rugby league, every tackle was loaded with menace and meant to damage. But from the melee Bob Fulton emerged and showed his unrivalled skill. Heads and Clarkson wrote of his "towering genius" and "football brilliance" respectively.

Manly's English import Malcolm Reilly himself never one to take a backward step, was the first victim of the carnage. In the opening minute a Cronulla forward set his sights on Reilly and didn't miss his target. Reilly was in agony from a badly bruised hip and left the field for pain-killers, to return for revenge. He then created mayhem but bowed out in the 25th minute and was replaced by John Bucknall.

After a number of brawls in the first half, referee Keith Page eventually called all 26 players in for mass cautions twice,[5] advising that he would send the next infringer off.

Then Fulton took over in the 29th and 58th minutes. 'Bozo' demonstrated power and pace in both tries. The first came from a brilliant Fred Jones flick pass [6] which saw Fulton split Eric Archer and Steve Rogers just twenty-five metres from the line. Manly took a 5-0 scoreline to the half time break.

The second Fulton try came after Eadie took a pass from five-eighth. Ian Martin then looked for Fulton and set him up perfectly.

Cronulla had to wait a long time before they dented the Manly line. It was in the 70th minute that the crack appeared. Trailing 8-2, the Sharks struck when lock Greg Pierce positioned replacement fullback Rick Bourke for a try. Eadie stretched the lead to three points from a penalty kick and then the Sharks rallied and bombarded Manly. Ultimately, the Manly defence of John Mayes, Terry Randall, Peter Peters, Eadie and Fulton were up to the task. It will, however, go down in Sharks folklore that a Tommy Bishop flick pass in the dying moments failed to go to hand with the Manly line wide open. It was a set move Cronulla had successfully played all year, but had adjusted for the Grand Final in anticipation of Manly's familiarity with the standard move. As expected, the Manly defence reacted to snuff out the set play, leaving a gap that Bishop's pass managed to pinpoint. But in the heat of the moment, Sharks second-rower Ken Maddison also played for the old move, ran the wrong line and the ball went to ground - and with it went the premiership.

Manly-Warringah 10 (Tries: Fulton 2. Goals: Eadie 2. )

Cronulla-Sutherland 7 (Tries: Bourke. Goals: Rogers )

References

  1. ^ "Form over five years". The Sun-Herald. 19 March 1978. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XftjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=feYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=630,6357490. Retrieved 19 June 2011. 
  2. ^ "A history of the Newtown Jets". thefinalwinter.com. http://www.thefinalwinter.com/content/view/36/56/. Retrieved 2009-07-06. 
  3. ^ Sydney Sunday Telegraph 16 Sept 1973
  4. ^ Sydney Sun Herald 16 Sept 1973
  5. ^ Coady, Ben (2009-09-28). "Grand final dramas". WA Today (Australia: Fairfax Digital). http://blogs.watoday.com.au/executive-style/sportandstyle/bencoady/2009/09/28/grandfinaldra.html. Retrieved 2010-01-15. 
  6. ^ Harker, Jon (25 September 1993). "I'll walk off, says Referee". The Sun-Herald (Australia: Fairfax Media): p. 72. http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&docID=news930925_0312_2162. Retrieved 12 February 2011. 

External links


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