1998 NRL season
The 1998 NRL season was the 91st season of professional rugby league football in Australia, and the inaugural season of the newly formed National Rugby League. After the 1997 season, in which the Australian Rugby League and Super League organisations ran separate competitions parallel to each other, they joined to create a reunited competition in the NRL. The first professional rugby league club to be based in Victoria, the Melbourne Storm was introduced into the League, and with the closure of the Hunter Mariners, Western Reds and South Queensland Crushers, twenty teams competed for the premiership, which culminated in the 1998 NRL grand final between the Brisbane Broncos and Canterbury Bulldogs.
Pre-season
The National Rugby League was formed after an agreement was reached between the two rivaling competitions from 1997, the Australian Rugby League and the Super League. In December 1997, the two parties formed a joint board to run the new Australian rugby league club competition. The vast majority of the 22 clubs that contested in 1997 across the split competitions also contested the first season of the National Rugby League, with the exception of the Hunter Mariners, the Western Reds and South Queensland.The National Rugby League imposed a $3M salary cap on each of the clubs.
Advertising
's ad agency VCD in Sydney successfully kept the account post-reunification. The 1998 ad featured the song "Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba with its theme of rising against adversity:There was no visual performance of the song in the ad which returned to the standard rugby league imagery of big hits and crunching tackles to accompany the track.
Teams
The closure of the Hunter Mariners, Western Reds and South Queensland Crushers, and the introduction of the Melbourne Storm meant that a total of twenty clubs contested the 1998 Premiership. Eleven of these clubs were from Sydney, but an agreement between the Australian Rugby League and Super League meant that many of these clubs were in danger of being cut from the competition by the 2000 season when, it was decided, only 14 clubs would be invited to contest the premiership.| Adelaide Rams 2nd season Ground: Adelaide Oval → Hindmarsh Stadium Coach: Rod Reddy → Dean Lance Captain: Kerrod Walters | Auckland Warriors 4th season Ground: Ericsson Stadium Coach: Frank Endacott Captain: Matthew Ridge | Balmain Tigers 91st season Ground: Leichhardt Oval Coach: Wayne Pearce Captain: Darren Senter | Brisbane Broncos 11th season Ground: ANZ Stadium Coach: Wayne Bennett Captain: Allan Langer | Canberra Raiders 17th season Ground: Bruce Stadium Coach: Mal Meninga Captain: Laurie Daley |
| Canterbury Bulldogs 64th season Ground: Belmore Oval Coach: Steve Folkes Captain: Simon Gillies→Darren Britt | Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks 32nd season Ground: Shark Park Coach: John Lang Captain: Andrew Ettinghausen | Gold Coast Chargers 11th season Ground: Carrara Stadium Coach: Phil Economidis Captain: Jamie Goddard | Illawarra Steelers 17th season Ground: WIN Stadium Coach: Andrew Farrar Captain: Paul McGregor | Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 52nd season Ground: Brookvale Oval Coach: Bob Fulton Captain: Geoff Toovey |
| Melbourne Storm 1st season Ground: Olympic Park Stadium Coach: Chris Anderson Captain: Glenn Lazarus | Newcastle Knights 11th season Ground: Marathon Stadium Coach: Mal Reilly Captain: Paul Harragon | North Queensland Cowboys 4th season Ground: Stockland Stadium Coach: Tim Sheens Captain: Ian Roberts & John Lomax | North Sydney Bears 91st season Ground: North Sydney Oval Coach: Peter Louis Captain: Jason Taylor | Parramatta Eels 52nd season Ground: Parramatta Stadium Coach: Brian Smith Captain: Dean Pay |
| Penrith Panthers 32nd season Ground: Penrith Stadium Coach: Royce Simmons Captain: Steve Carter | Sydney City Roosters 91st season Ground: Sydney Football Stadium Coach: Phil Gould Captain: Brad Fittler | South Sydney Rabbitohs 91st season Ground: Sydney Football Stadium Coach: Steve Martin → Craig Coleman Captain: Sean Garlick | St. George Dragons 78th season Ground: Kogarah Oval Coach: David Waite Captain: Mark Coyne | Western Suburbs Magpies 91st season Ground: Campbelltown Stadium Coach: Tommy Raudonikis Captain: Paul Langmack |
Regular season
Rounds 5 and 7: Brisbane Broncos set a new record for their biggest win, firstly 58-4 against North Queensland Cowboys, then 60-6 against North Sydney Bears, both games being played at Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre.Round 8: 1997 ARL premiers, the Newcastle Knights played the 1997 Super League premiers, the Brisbane Broncos and Brisbane won 26-6 in Newcastle before a crowd of 27,119, cementing their position at the top of the ladder.
Round 12: The record for the biggest comeback in premiership history was re-set by the North Queensland Cowboys who trailed 26–0 at half-time and came back to beat the Penrith Panthers 36–28.
Round 24: Ivan Cleary's tally of 284 points set a new individual record for most points scored in a season in Australian club rugby league history; it has since been beaten.
Ladder
Finals series
The biggest surprise of the season was when the Melbourne Storm finished 3rd after the regular season in their first ever year, only to be knocked out by the Brisbane Broncos in the Semi Final. The Canterbury Bulldogs became the lowest placed team ever to make the Grand Final, after finishing 9th after the regular season. The Bulldogs did it tough though, coming from 16 points down twice in as many weeks. They came from 16-0 down to win 28-16 against the Newcastle Knights in the Semi Final, then 18-2 down with 11 minutes to go to make it 18-18 after regulation time, then going on to win 32-20 in extra time against the Parramatta Eels in the Preliminary Final.- Due to an agreement held between the NRL and SFS that required a set number of finals games to be held at the SFS the Preliminary finals where both held at the SFS to meet the agreement despite neither "home" side being from Sydney.
Grand final
Post season
Brisbane's consistent dominance over other teams at this period of time contributed to the National Rugby League's plans to cut the number of teams down to 14 in order to ensure competitiveness and the long-term financial success of the game.Despite the inclusion of "national" in the new competition's name, both the Gold Coast and Adelaide clubs folded at the end of the 1998 season. A new Gold Coast side re-entered the competition nine years later in 2007.
1998 was the last season for the seventy-eight-year-old St. George Dragons and seventeen-year-old Illawarra Steelers clubs, which merged to form the NRL's first joint-venture team at the conclusion of the season, the St George Illawarra Dragons, for inclusion in the 1999 Premiership.