Eastern Suburbs season 1908

Eastern Suburbs (now known as the Sydney Roosters) competed in their first New South Wales Rugby League season in 1908. They won 9 of their 11 matchess and finished runners up, being defeated by the South Sydney Rabbitohs in the first premiership decider.

Rugby league squad player | no=1 | nat=Australia | pos=PR | name=Harry 'Jersey' Flegg
other=c

1908 Draw & results

Inaugural Match

The opening round of the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership consisted of two double headers. The match involving Eastern Suburbs was played on 20th of April 1908 (the Easter weekend) at Sydney's Wentworth Park ground.

Eastern Suburbs 32 (Stuntz 4, Smith, D'Alpuget, Brown, Miller tries; Jones 2 goals, D'Alpuget goal, Miller field goal) defeated Newtown 16. The referee for the match was E. Hooper.

The team was: Fred Fry; W. Smith; Dave Brown; Dan Frawley; Johnno Stuntz; Albert Rosenfeld; Lou D'Alpuget; Bob Mable; Lou Jones; Larry O'Malley; Herb Brackenreg; Sid Pearce; Jersey Flegg (c). Smith hurt his shoulder during the match and was replaced by Horrie Miller on the wing.

Newspaper reports of the match were enthusiastic with one journalist describing the match as, “"A capital display considering that the contestants have as yet only a fair acquaintance with the rules".”

Another, 'The Sydney Mail' described it as “"The best game of the day".

W. Smith had the honour of scoring the first ever try in first grade for Eastern Suburbs. It was the only try he ever scored for the club. The try was converted by Lou D'Alpuget and ironically this was also the only goal he ever kicked for Easts while Johnno Stuntz's 4 tries remains the most tries scored on debut in 1st grade.

Eastern Suburbs 32 (4 J. Stuntz, W. Smith, L. D'Alpuget, H. Miller Tries ; 2 L. Jones, L. D'Alpuget Goals; H. Miller Field Goal) defeated Newtown 16 (J. Scott, H. Hamill , + 2 Tries ; 2 Goals) at the Wentworth Park Ground. The referee for the match was E. Hooper, the crowd figure was 3000 and the admittance was sixpence.

eason summary

* Eastern Suburbs finished runners up to South Sydney in rugby league's first premiership decider. Both sides were without their leading players who had left a few weeks earlier on the first Kangaroo Tour.
* Eastern Suburbs won the reserve grade competition.
* Horrie Miller was the top try scorer in the NSWRL in its first season scoring 15 tries.
* Horrie Miller was the top poimt scorer in the NSWRL first season scoring 47 points.
* The first Aboriginal to play rugby league, George Green, made his debut for Eastern Suburbs in the Semi-Final.
* Representatives to come from the Eastern Suburbs club during 1908 were:-
('Sydney'): Dan Frawley, Herb Brackenreg, Horrie Miller, Dally Messenger, Lou D'Alpuget, Jersey Flegg. (NSW): Dally Messenger, Larry O'Malley, Lou Jones, Herb Brackenreg, Johnno Stuntz, Albert Rosenfeld, Sandy Pearce, Bob Mable. (QLD): Dally Messenger(Australia): Dally Messenger, Albert Rosenfeld, Lou Jones, Sandy Pearce, Dan Frawley, Larry O'Malley.
* Dally Messenger, Albert Rosenfeld and Lou Jones (res) played in Australia's first test match.
* Dally Messenger was the first Australian captain to come from the Eastern Suburbs club.
* While on tour with the first Kangaroos Dally Messenger was officially recognised with kicking a world record length goal. This kick, measuring 73.2 metres, was recorded in earlier versions of the Guinness World Book of Records but has faded out over the years.
* On the first Kangaroo Tour Eastern Suburbs forward Larry O’Malley played in 35 matches, which remains as the most matches ever played on a Kangaroo tour.

References

* The story Of Australian Rugby League; Gary Lester
* [http://stats.rleague.com/rl/rl_index.html Rugby League Tables and Statistics]