New South Wales Rugby League season 1988

Infobox rugby league season
year = 1988
competition = New South Wales Rugby League premiership


imagesize = 125px
caption =
teams = 16
premiers = leagueicon|Canterbury|16 Canterbury-Bankstown
count = 6th
minor premiers = leagueicon|Cronulla|16 Cronulla-Sutherland
mpcount = 1st
matches = 183
points = 6559
attendance = 1966658
top points scorer = leagueicon|Canberra|16 Gary Belcher (218)
top try scorer = leagueicon|Canberra|16 John Ferguson (20)The year 1988's New South Wales Rugby League premiership was the eighty-first season of professional rugby league football in Australia. This was the year of the Australian Bicentenary celebrations and also saw the first expansion of the NSWRL competition outside the borders of New South Wales, with the addition of three new teams, the Brisbane Broncos, Gold Coast-Tweed Giants and Newcastle Knights. The largest NSWRL premiership yet, sixteen clubs competed for the J J Giltinan Shield and Winfield Cup during the 1988 season, which culminated in a grand final between the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and Balmain Tigers. This season NSWRL teams also competed for the 1988 Panasonic Cup.

eason summary

On March 4, the season opened with the first game of rugby league played at the newly-built Sydney Football Stadium. The St. George Dragons defeated the Eastern Suburbs Roosters 24–14. The brand new Brisbane Broncos, featuring Australian Kangaroos captain Wally Lewis appearing for the first time in the NSWRL premiership, played their first match against the previous season's premiers Manly and won 44-10.

Eventual grand finalists the Balmain Tigers had a dreadful start to the season with six wins and five losses by the end of the first full round. But their plight was rescued by a masterstroke from their chief executive Keith Barnes. The Great Britain side was touring Australia that season and in strict secrecy Barnes negotiated to have the English captain and centre Ellery Hanley - judged the best player in the English competition the previous season and an undoubted world-class player - to join the Tigers. Barnes got to the NSWRL to register Hanley at 4.55pm on June 30th, just five minutes inside the deadline for signing players for that season.

Twenty-two regular season rounds were played from March till August, with Cronulla-Sutherland winning the minor premiership. Penrith and Balmain finished on equal points in fifth place and played each other for the place in the top five, alongside Cronilla, Canterbury, Canberra and Manly.

The 1988 season's Rothmans Medallist was Cronulla Sutherland's Barry Russell. The Dally M Award went to Cronulla forward Gavin Miller, and "Rugby League Week" gave its player of the year award to Balmian's hooker, Ben Elias.

Teams

This season saw the premiership's first expansion since 1982 with the addition of three teams: the Brisbane Broncos, the Gold Coast-Tweed Giants and the Newcastle Knights. This brought the League one step closer to becoming a national competition as a total of sixteen teams, the largest number in the tournament's history, contested the premiership, including five Sydney-based foundation teams, another six from Sydney, two from greater New South Wales, two from Queensland, and one from the Australian Capital Territory.

Grand Final

Following Balmain's extraordinary late season run in winning thirteen of fifteen games, the stage was set for a Grand Final of great appeal. 1980s mastercoach Warren Ryan of Balmain was up against the club he had coached for four years to three grand finals and two premierships, as well as being matched against the the man who had replaced him at Canterbury - Phil Gould. It was master against pupil. At just 30 years of age, Gould was vying not only to become the youngest coach to win a grand final but the first since Balmain's Leo Nosworthy in 1969 to steer a team to premiership victory in his first season coaching the top-grade.

The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs faced the Balmain Tigers on 11 September, 1988 in the first Grand Final played at the Sydney Football Stadium and the last game for Steve Mortimer. The match was played early so that Channel Ten could broadcast the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Balmain grabbed an early 6-4 lead when Benny Elias put up a bomb and was first to the ball ahead of Bulldog Jason Alchin.

A highly controversial tackle by Terry Lamb put Balmain's British import Ellery Hanley out of the game. Hanley staggered off, heavily concussed, with the score at 6-4. Under the rules of the time, Hanley was allowed 10 minutes to recover in the head bin. If he could not return he would need to be replaced. He returned just before half-time and stood, out-of-sorts, on the wing. The Bulldogs then ran in a 70-metre try from broken play and went to the break with a lead of 12-8.

Hanley didn't return after half-time and the Bulldogs started to dominate. A great Canterbury team try to Michael Hagan sealed the match. Bruce McGuire scored Balmain's second try late in the match although the outcome was already clear. The match ended on a sentimental note when Gould called the Bulldog's representative star, former captain and 271 game veteran, Steve Mortimer to the sideline. He was less than fully fit and had his arm heavily padded to protect the wrist he had broken early in the season. However Mortimer had been named as a fresh reserve as tribute to his previous club contributions and the match ended with him moving to dummy half and taking the ball up for the last time.

Canterbury-Bankstown 24 (Tries: Nissen, Hagan, Gillespie, Lamb; Goals: Lamb 4 )

Balmain 12 (Tries: Elias, McGuire; Goals: Conlon 2 )

Clive Churchill Medal: Paul Dunn

References

* [http://www.stats.rleague.com/rl/seas/1988.html Rugby League Tables - Season 1988] "The World of Rugby League".
* [http://www.rleague.com//db/year/1988/j_j_giltinan_shield_and_winfield_cup/index.php 1988 J J Giltinan Shield and Winfield Cup at rleague.com]
* [http://www.rabbitohs.com.au/The-Club/Tradition/Results---1981-1990.html Results:1981-90 at rabbitohs.com.au]
* [http://rugbyleagueproject.com/competitions/NSWRL_1988.html NSWRL season 1988 at rugbyleagueproject.com]