1956 NSWRFL season

1956 NSWRFL season
Teams	10
Premiers	St. George (3rd title)
Minor premiers	St. George (3rd title)
Matches played	95
Points scored	3096 (total) 32.589 (per match)
Top try scorer(s)	Tommy Ryan (19)

1956's New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership was the forty-ninth season of the rugby league competition based in Sydney. Ten teams from across the city competed for the J. J. Giltinan Shield during the season, which culminated in a Grand Final between St. George and Balmain.

Season summary

Teams

Balmain	Canterbury-Bankstown	Eastern Suburbs	Manly-Warringah
Newtown	North Sydney	Parramatta	South Sydney
	St. George	Western Suburbs

Ladder

	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts
1	St. George	18	13	1	4	398	239	+159	27
2	Balmain	18	13	0	5	293	241	+52	26
3	South Sydney	18	11	1	6	364	265	+99	23
4	Newtown	18	11	0	7	333	229	+104	22
5	Western Suburbs	18	11	0	7	276	221	+55	22
6	Manly	18	7	3	8	323	269	+54	17
7	Canterbury	18	6	0	12	235	352	-117	12
8	North Sydney	18	5	1	12	218	324	-106	11
9	Eastern Suburbs	18	5	1	12	211	354	-143	11
10	Parramatta	18	4	1	13	224	381	-157	9

Finals

Home	Score	Away	Match Information
			Date and Time	Venue	Referee	Crowd
Playoff
Newtown	10-5	Western Suburbs	14 August 1956	Redfern Oval		20,920
Semi Finals
South Sydney	45-7	Western Suburbs	18 August 1956	Sydney Cricket Ground	Col Pearce	51,775
St. George	30-25	Balmain	25 August 1956	Sydney Cricket Ground	Col Pearce	37,339
Preliminary Final
Balmain	36-33	South Sydney	1 September 1956	Sydney Cricket Ground	Darcy Lawler	42,350
Grand Final
St. George	18-12	Balmain	8 September 1956	Sydney Cricket Ground	Darcy Lawler	61,987

Grand Final

St. George	Position	Balmain
Doug Fleming	FB	Keith Barnes
Ross Kite	WG	Arthur Lorimer
Merv Lees	CE	Geoff Hawkey
Kevin O'Brien	CE	Kevin Mosman
Tommy Ryan	WG	Terry McGovern
Peter Carroll	FE	Bill Harris
Bob Bugden	HB	Brian Staunton (c)
Kevin Brown	PR	Jack Moon
Ken Kearney (c)	HK	Neville Watt
Bryan Orrock	PR	Robert Heaney
Harry Melville	SR	Jack Moses
Norm Provan	SR	Ron Potter
Billy Wilson	LK	Gus Gray
Norm Tipping	Coach	Norman Robinson

Up and coming Balmain fullback Keith Barnes came into the game with confidence, having booted 17 goals in his previous two games. In the most recent of those contests, the Preliminary Final against South Sydney, Tigers half-back, playmaker and captain Brian Staunton had been flattened by a Clive Churchill stiffarm tackle and as a consequence was still out-of-sorts on grand final day.

St George centre Merv Lees cracked his collar bone in a tackle in the 13th minute and hardman prop Billy Wilson moved out from the pack to play in the centres in spite of being constrained himself with a knee ligament injury. Wilson tormented Hawkey and Mosman in both attack and defence and set up both his own wingers for a number of long dashes. He was later selected by his teammates as Man of the Match with Kevin Brown, Bob Bugden and Norm Provan also starring in the game.

The sides were evenly matched for the first 38 minutes before a backline move from a scrum saw Dragons winger Tommy Ryan draw Barnes and pass to prop Kevin Brown who had freed himself from the scrum to be present in support.

Tries to Bugden and Kevin O'Brien came quickly after the break with Harry Melville's final try for the Dragons 18 minutes into the second half putting the game out of the Tigers' reach. Staunton responded with his second try for Balmain late in the game.

Norm Tipping had coached the Dragons to an excellent season result of 15 wins, 4 losses and 1 draw but would be ousted regardless from the coaching job shortly after the grand final. He was the loser in a power struggle with Dragons on-field leader Ken Kearney who that year had captained Australia to a three Test whitewash of New Zealand, had captained New South Wales to state victory over Queensland, won the Sunday Telegraph's Player of the Year award and ultimately captained the Saints to a premiership. Kearney had lost the coaching role to Tipping at the end of the 1955 season. At the end of 1956 the St George committee chose to back Kearney's fine football brain and his advanced English-learned strategies on attack, defense and conditioning in choosing him as their captain-coach to go forward. In the process they laid the foundation for the Dragons' record-breaking premiership stranglehold.

St George 18 (Tries: O'Brien, Bugden, Brown, Melville. Goals: Fleming 3.)

Balmain 12 (Tries: Staunton 2. Goals: Barnes 3.)

References

• Rugby League Tables - Season 1956 The World of Rugby League
• Writer, Larry (1995) Never Before, Never Again, Pan MacMillan, Sydney
• Results: 1951-60 at rabbitohs.com.au
• 1956 J J Giltinan Shield at rleague.com
• NSWRFL season 1956 at rugbyleagueproject.com
• 1956 Final at Dragons History site