1910 NSWRFL season


The 1910 NSWRFL season was the third season of the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership, Sydney’s top-level rugby league club competition, Australia’s first. Eight teams from across the city contested during the season for the premiership and the Royal Agricultural Society Challenge Shield. During the season, many of the league’s top players took part in matches of the 1910 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia.

Season summary

On 23 July 1910 at the Sydney Showground the South Sydney club defeated Western Suburbs 67–0. This still stands as Souths’ highest ever score and biggest winning margin in a premiership game. It was not beaten in the NSWRFL until 11 May 1935 when St. George defeated Canterbury-Bankstown 91–6, which remains the record score and margin as of 2019.
During the season Annandale’s Ray, Roy, Rex and Bernard Norman became the first set of four brothers to play in the same NSWRFL side.
The League's takings for all matches this year amounted to £13,512, an increase of over £6,000 on the previous season. 1910 was the first season where the NSFWRFL had more people in attendance than Rugby Union.

Teams

With the loss of Cumberland at the end of the 1908 season, the league remained with eight teams; a preferable outcome since no byes would be needed. However by the end of the 1909 season, interest for a local Newcastle competition as well as the difficulties of longer travel for the Newcastle side saw it pull out of the premiership. As a result, a team from Annandale joined the premiership to leave the competition with eight teams. Also this season St. Luke's Park became the Western Suburbs club's home ground.
Annandale
1st season
Ground: Wentworth Park
Coach:
Captain: George Wilcox
Balmain
3rd season
Ground: Birchgrove Park
Coach: Robert Graves
Captain: Arthur Halloway
Eastern Suburbs
3rd season
Ground: RAS Showground
Captain- Coach: Dally Messenger
Glebe
3rd season
Ground: Wentworth Park
Coach:Chris McKivat
Captain: Alex Burdon
Newtown
3rd season
Ground: Erskineville Metters Park
Captain-Coach: Charles 'Boxer' Russell
North Sydney
3rd season
Ground: North Sydney Oval
Coach:
Captain: Tedda Courtney
South Sydney
3rd season
Ground: RAS Showground
Captain-Coach: Arthur Hennessy
Western Suburbs
3rd season
Ground: St. Luke's Park
Coach:
Captain: Percy Bolt

Ladder

Newtown finished on top of the League's ladder at the end of the regular season.
TeamPldWDLPFPAPDPts
1 Newtown14111226092+17023
2 South Sydney141103326109+21722
3 Eastern Suburbs14923248116+13220
4 Balmain14806153190-3716
5 Glebe14608175194-1912
6 Annandale14518145200-5511
7 North Sydney143011146283-1376
8 Western Suburbs141013115386-2712

Final

Unlike the previous two seasons where a play-off system was used to decide the premier, there was only one game played in 1910. The top two teams, Newtown and South Sydney, played off in a memorable match in front of fifteen or sixteen thousand people at the Sydney Showground on 17 September 1910. Leading 4-2 with reportedly only seconds to go, South Sydney seemed set to take out their third straight premiership. However, after Souths player Howard Hallett was forced to kick the ball clear from his own line, Newtown centre Albert Hawkes caught the ball on the full just metres away from halfway and the touch line. The rules at the time allowed Hawkes to claim a "fair mark" and Newtown to have a shot at goal. Newtown captain Charles "Boxer" Russell was successful in kicking the goal from a difficult position, allowing Newtown to tie the game and win the competition as they had been minor premiers.
Newtown 4
drew with
South Sydney Rabbitohs 4