New South Wales Rugby Football League season 1982

Infobox rugby league season
year = 1982
competition = New South Wales Rugby Football League


imagesize = 125px
caption =
teams = 14
premiers =
count = 2nd
minor premiers =
mpcount = 2nd
matches = 188
points = 5927
attendance = 2282194
top points scorer = (279)
top try scorer = (23)
1982's New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership was the seventy-fifth season of professional rugby league football in Australia. This season saw the League's first expansion since 1967 with the first two clubs from outside the Sydney area in over half a century introduced: the Canberra Raiders and the Illawarra Steelers. In total fourteen clubs, including six Sydney-based foundation teams, another six from Sydney, one from greater New South Wales and one from the Australian Capital Territory competed for the J J Giltinan Shield and newly-created Winfield Cup during the season, which culminated in a grand final between the Parramatta and Manly-Warringah clubs. This season, NSWRFL teams also competed for the 1982 KB Cup.

eason summary

This year a bronze replica of "the Gladiators" - the 1963 photo taken by John O'Gready of Norm Provan and Arthur Summons' post-game, mud-caked embrace - was first adopted to adorn the Winfield Cup, the new trophy to be awarded to the grand final winners. Because of the introduction of two new teams, tewnty-six (rather than twenty-two) regular season rounds were played from February till August, resulting in a top five of Easts, Newtown, Parramatta, Cronulla and Manly. The new teams, the Illawarra Steelers and the Canberra Raiders, would finish their debut seasons in second last and last place respectively.

The 1982 season saw the only nil-all scoreline in competition history. The Newtown Jets and Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs drew their match on 28 May, with neither team scoring a point. Parramatta managed 23 wins from 28 matches in 1982 - the most wins in a season by a club in NSWRL/NRL premiership history alongside Manly-Warringah's 23 in 1983. The long-standing record for the longest suspension for a player in the League's history was broken during the season. Western Suburbs' Bob Cooper was suspended for 15 months for punching Illawarra's Lee Pomfret.

The 1982 season's Rothmans Medallist was Canterbury-Bankstown's Greg Brentnall and the Dally M Award went to Parramatta's lock forward, Ray Price. "Rugby League Week" gave their player of the year award to Eastern Suburbs' halfback Kevin Hastings for the third consecutive season.

Teams

This year saw the first inclusion of teams based outside of the Sydney area since the foundation Newcastle club departed the League in 1909. This was the first of several expansions that would take place over the next decade and a half which would see the Sydney-wide competition grow into a New South Wales-wide competition and eventually into a national league. Also, for the first time in three quarters of a century, the League's 1908 foundation teams were outnumbered by teams introduced after 1908.

Grand Final

The Eels won the minor premiership with ease - eight points ahead of Manly - and breezed through the decider with the same confidence. Manly opened the scoring through Phil Blake in the opening minutes, but Parramatta replied quickly when Brett Kenny put Steve Ella over. After a quiet period, Manly collapsed in the ten minutes before half-time with Parramatta scoring three tries. The first to Eric Grothe came when Brett Kenny had shown brilliant evasive skills on the second tackle after Manly dropped the ball, the second came when a Peter Sterling bomb deflected off a Parramatta player into Kenny's arms, and the third after quick hands saw Kenny send Neil Hunt over in the corner. The Eels led 16-3 at half-time and, despite Les Boyd scoring after playing the ball forward in the 48th minute, Brett Kenny's second try in the 62nd minute sealed victory.

Parramatta 21 (Tries: Kenny 2, Grothe, Ella, Hunt. Goals: Cronin 3.)

Manly 8 (Tries: P Blake, Boyd. Goal: Eadie.)

References

* [http://www.stats.rleague.com/rl/seas/1982.html Rugby League Tables - Season 1982] "The World of Rugby League"
* [http://www.rabbitohs.com.au/The-Club/Tradition/Results---1981-1990.html Results:1981-90 at rabbitohs.com.au]
* [http://www.rleague.com//db/year/1982/j_j_giltinan_shield_and_winfield_cup/index.php 1982 J J Giltinan Shield and Winfield Cup at rleague.com.au]
* [http://rugbyleagueproject.com/competitions/NSWRL_1982.html NSRFL season 1982 at rugbyleagueproject.com]