1993 NSWRL season
The 1993 NSWRL season was the eighty-sixth season of professional rugby league football in Australia. The New South Wales Rugby League's sixteen teams competed for the J. J. Giltinan Shield during the season, which culminated in a replay of the previous year's grand final for the Winfield Cup trophy between the Brisbane Broncos and St. George Dragons. As Sydney celebrated winning the 2000 Olympic Games, Brisbane spoiled the party by retaining the NSWRL premiership.
Season summary
This season the 10-metre rule was introduced, which required the defensive team to retreat 10 metres from where the ball is being played, allowing more room for attacking players.On 16 June the Gold Coast club was fined $50,000 for exceeding their 1992 salary cap by $150,000.
On 22 August, the Canberra Raiders beat the Parramatta Eels 68-nil. As of 2019 this is still the biggest winning margin where the losing team has been kept scoreless.
The Canberra Raiders' Ricky Stuart won both the Rothmans Medal and Dally M Medal as the best and fairest player in the League in 1993, while Steve Walters, also from the Raiders, was named Rugby League Week's player of the year.
A total of twenty-two regular season rounds were played from March till August, resulting in a top five of Canterbury, St. George, Canberra, Manly and Brisbane who would go on to battle it out in the finals.
Teams
The lineup of teams remained unchanged from the previous season, with sixteen clubs contesting 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.| Balmain Tigers 86th season Ground: Leichhardt Oval Coach: Alan Jones Captain: Ben Elias | Brisbane Broncos 6th season Ground: ANZ Stadium Coach: Wayne Bennett Captain: Allan Langer | Canberra Raiders 12th season Ground: Bruce Stadium Coach: Tim Sheens Captain: Mal Meninga | Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs 59th season Ground: Belmore Oval Coach: Chris Anderson Captain: Terry Lamb |
| Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks 27th season Ground: Endeavour Park Coach: Arthur Beetson Captain: Dan Stains | Eastern Suburbs Roosters 86th season Ground: Sydney Football Stadium Coach: Mark Murray Captain: Craig Salvatori | Gold Coast Seagulls 6th season Ground: Seagulls Stadium Coach: Wally Lewis Captain: Peter Gill & Brent Todd | Illawarra Steelers 12th season Ground: Wollongong Stadium Coach: Graham Murray Captain: John Cross |
Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 47th season Ground: Brookvale Oval Coach: Bob Fulton Captain: Geoff Toovey | Newcastle Knights 6th season Ground: Marathon Stadium Coach: David Waite Captain: Michael Hagan | North Sydney Bears 86th season Ground: North Sydney Oval Coach: Peter Louis Captain: Tony Rea | Parramatta Eels 47th season Ground: Parramatta Stadium Coach: Mick Cronin Captain: Brett Kenny |
| Penrith Panthers 27th season Ground: Penrith Stadium Coach: Phil Gould Captain: John Cartwright | South Sydney Rabbitohs 86th season Ground: Sydney Football Stadium Coach: Frank Curry Captain: Michael Andrews | St. George Dragons 73rd season Ground: Kogarah Oval Coach: Brian Smith Captain: Michael Potter | Western Suburbs Magpies 86th season Ground: Campbelltown Stadium Coach: Warren Ryan Captain: Paul Langmack |
Advertising
For the second year running the NSWRL and its advertising agency Hertz Walpole used the 1992 re-recording of "The Best" by Tina Turner and Jimmy Barnes which had been released as "Simply the Best", the title by which the song was more popularly known in Australia.No new Tina footage was available until she came to Australia at the season's end, so further shots were taken from the 1992 Tina and Jimmy black & white film clip that accompanied the song's release and used in amongst the usual previous season action and pre-season training images.
The League and Winfield enjoyed additional advertising exposure late in the season when Tina aligned an Australian leg of her 1993 tour with the NSWRL's final series. She performed on-stage at the Grand Final, presented the victor's trophy and performed the next week in a number of full-scale rock'n'roll shows with her band at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.
Ladder
- Balmain were stripped of 2 competition points due to an illegal replacement in one game.
Finals
Chart
Grand Final
For the second year running Brisbane and St George played out the decider. The Broncos had momentum coming into the final, with only one loss in their last six matches. Even though that loss was to St. George in the final regular season round, Brisbane remained favourites. The sides for the grand final replay were largely unchanged between the two years. Only one Bronco had not played in the 1992 grand final and four of the Dragons. It was also Glenn Lazarus' fifth consecutive Grand Final appearance, having appeared the previous year's for Brisbane and the three years' before that with Canberra. In the pre-match performance, Tina Turner performed "The Best" on stage at the Sydney Football Stadium alongside her saxophonist, US session musician Timmy Cappello. A ground record crowd for the Sydney Football Stadium of 42,239 was on hand for the match.First half
During the first minute of the game, St. George prop Jason Stevens suffered a badly broken thumb and would take no further part in the match. Later, following a Tony Priddle error, the Broncos opened the scoring in the twenty-first minute after Kevin Walters threw a dummy thirty metres out and sliced through the St. George line then passed back inside to Chris Johns who dived over. Julian ONeill converted the try so Brisbane led 6 - 0. About seven minutes later it was Kevin Walters again who set up Terry Matterson on his inside to cross for a soft try from close range,
and ONeill missed his kick so Brisbane led 10 – 0 with seven minutes of the first half remaining. About two minutes away from half-time Andrew Gee gave St. George a penalty in the ruck and they decided to take the two points, meaning the score at the break was 10 - 2 in favour of the Broncos.
Second half
St. George opened the scoring in the second half, again with an Ian Herron kick following a penalty from Andrew Gee, bringing the deficit back to a converted try at 10 - 4. Brisbane withstood further raids from the Dragons and when another penalty was awarded to St. George in front of the posts they again took the two points, with Herron making it three from three so the score was 10 - 6 in favour of the Broncos with just over three-quarters of the match gone. However, these would be the last points the Dragons would score with the Broncos getting in close to St. Georges line before passing the ball out to Willie Carne on the right wing to dive over in the corner for the game's third try in the sixty-eighth minute. ONeill missed the sideline conversion attempt so the score was 14 - 6 with under ten minutes of the match remaining. There were no more points before the full-time siren, so this would remain the final score.
- Brisbane Broncos 14
Goals: Matterson 1/3
- St. George Dragons 6
Clive Churchill Medal: Brad Mackay
After the match Tina Turner presented the trophy to Allan Langer and joined in Brisbane's post-game victory song. Despite being on the losing side, Dragons lock Brad Mackay was chosen by NSWRL General Manager John Quayle, Don Furner and two St. George legends, John Raper and Reg Gasnier to be awarded the Clive Churchill Medal as man-of-the-match, with Queensland premier Wayne Goss questioning the decision. By retaining their title Brisbane had also become the first team in history to win a premiership from fifth spot. The match also drew remarkably strong ratings nationwide.
Attendances
The regular season attendances for the 1993 season aggregated to a total of 2,625,467 at an average of 14,426 per game.Due to a sponsorship dispute between the Castlemaine XXXX sponsored Queensland Rugby League and the Powers Brewery sponsored Brisbane Broncos, the defending premiers moved from the 32,500 capacity Lang Park to the 59,000 capacity ANZ Stadium for 1993. At the host venue of the 1982 Commonwealth Games, the Broncos set a new league record average home attendance of 43,200. This was almost 27,000 more than the next best for the season set by Canterbury-Bankstown.
The highest ten regular season match attendances:
| Crowd | Venue | Home Team | Opponent | Round |
| 58,593 | ANZ Stadium | Brisbane Broncos | St. George Dragons | Round 22 |
| 57,212 | ANZ Stadium | Brisbane Broncos | Gold Coast Seagulls | Round 12 |
| 54,751 | ANZ Stadium | Brisbane Broncos | Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs | Round 17 |
| 51,517 | ANZ Stadium | Brisbane Broncos | Parramatta Eels | Round 3 |
| 46,001 | ANZ Stadium | Brisbane Broncos | Canberra Raiders | Round 4 |
| 40,733 | ANZ Stadium | Brisbane Broncos | Western Suburbs Magpies | Round 10 |
| 39,193 | ANZ Stadium | Brisbane Broncos | Balmain Tigers | Round 14 |
| 35,904 | ANZ Stadium | Brisbane Broncos | Penrith Panthers | Round 6 |
| 35,641 | Sydney Cricket Ground | St. George Dragons | Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs | Round 21 |
| 31,896 | ANZ Stadium | Brisbane Broncos | South Sydney Rabbitohs | Round 14 |