The 1978 NSWRFL season was the 71st season of the
NSWRFL Premiership
The New South Wales Rugby League premiership was the first rugby league football club competition established in Australia and contributor to today's National Rugby League. Run by the New South Wales Rugby League (initially named the New Sou ...
,
Sydney's professional
rugby league
Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 11 ...
football competition, and Australia's first. Twelve clubs, including six of 1908's foundation teams and another six from around Sydney competed for the
J.J. Giltinan Shield
The J.J. Giltinan Shield is an Australian rugby league trophy, awarded annually to the National Rugby League minor premiers. It was named after James J. Giltinan who was central to the founding of rugby league in Australia. Giltinan died in 195 ...
and
WD & HO Wills
W.D. & H.O. Wills was a British tobacco manufacturing company formed in Bristol, England. It was the first British company to mass-produce cigarettes, and one of the founding companies of Imperial Tobacco along with John Player & Sons.
The c ...
Cup during the season, which culminated in a
grand final
Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. S ...
between the Manly-Warringah and Cronulla-Sutherland clubs that was drawn and had to be re-played. NSWRFL teams also competed for the
1978 Amco Cup
The 1978 Amco Cup was the 5th edition of the NSWRFL Midweek Knockout Cup, a NSWRFL-organised national club Rugby League tournament between the leading clubs and representative teams from the NSWRFL, the BRL, the CRL, the QRL, the NZRL, Wes ...
.
Season summary
This season video citing was introduced for incidents of foul play that are not detected on the field.
Twenty-two regular season rounds were played from March till August, resulting in a top five of Western Suburbs, Cronulla-Sutherland, Manly-Warringah, Parramatta and Canterbury-Bankstown who battled it out in the finals.
Mick Cronin set a new record for most points scored by an individual in Australian club rugby league history with his tally of 282 points from 25 games in 1978. This record would stand for another twenty years. He also broke
Arthur Oxford
Arthur Thomas Oxford (1894–1980) was an Australian rugby league footballer, a state and national representative whose club career was played with the Eastern Suburbs club and South Sydney from 1915 to 1929.
Club career
A noted point scorer, ...
's 1920 record for consecutive goals with 26 in a row.
In a tragic accident during the match between Penrith and Newtown at
Henson Park
Henson Park is a multi purpose sports ground in Marrickville, New South Wales, Australia.
History
It was established in 1933 on the site of Daley's brick pit, Thomas Daley operated the Standsure Brick Company from 1886 to 1914. The brickworks ...
on 28 May, rookie Panther prop
John Farragher
John Farragher OAM (born 1 April 1957) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1970s. He played for the Penrith Panthers, as a .
Playing career
A Gilgandra junior, Farragher was graded by the Penrith Pant ...
broke his neck in a scrum and was left a
quadriplegic
Tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, is defined as the dysfunction or loss of motor and/or sensory function in the cervical area of the spinal cord. A loss of motor function can present as either weakness or paralysis leading to partial or ...
.
The 1978
Rothmans Medal
The Rothmans Medal was the premier individual award in the New South Wales Rugby League and Brisbane Rugby League competitions, and later in the Australian Rugby League, which was given to the player voted by referees as the best and fairest ...
list was
Parramatta
Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...
centre
Mick Cronin. ''
Rugby League Week
''Rugby League Week'' (frequently abbreviated to RLW) was the highest selling Australian rugby league magazine, ahead of major competitor ''Big League''. It was published weekly (on Wednesdays) during the Australian rugby league season, which ru ...
'' gave their player of the year award to Parramatta forward
Geoff Gerard
Geoff Gerard (born 10 July 1955) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1970s and 1980s. An Australia international and New South Wales State of Origin representative forward, he played his club football ...
.
The 1978 season was also the last in the playing career of future
Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame
The Australian Rugby LeaguHall of Fame'' honours players who have shown exceptional skill at rugby league, all-time great coaches and referees, and other major contributors to the game who are Australian.
It was officially established in 2002, ...
inductee,
Ron Coote
Ron Coote AM (born 1944) is an Australian former representative rugby league player whose club career was played with South Sydney and the Eastern Suburbs Roosters, with both of whom he won premierships. He is considered one of the nation's fi ...
.
Teams
Ladder
Finals
Manly finished the regular season in the relatively strong position of equal second with Cronulla, three points behind
minor premiers Wests. However after Cronulla beat Manly 17-12 in the qualifying final, every game from that point was a sudden-death fixture for the Sea Eagles.
The second week of finals saw Manly come from 3-13 behind Parramatta to draw 13-13 in the semi-final requiring a mid-week replay. Again in that match Parramatta led (11-2 this time), before Manly stormed home with three late tries in ten minutes to win 17-11. In the week following the game, Parramatta unsuccessfully attempted to have the match annulled and replayed due to Manly scoring a try on what was discovered to be a seventh tackle, a mistake by referee Greg Hartley.
Manly then had to back up a few days later to play a fresh Wests side in the Preliminary Final. Thus far the Magpies had only played one final to Manly's three. Wests had two tries disallowed by referee
Greg Hartley. Manly coach
Frank Stanton somehow coaxed a courageous effort out of his exhausted players and on field,
five-eighth
Five-eighth or Stand-off is one of the positions in a rugby league football team. Wearing jersey number 6, this player is one of the two half backs in a team, partnering the . Sometimes known as the pivot or second receiver, in a traditional a ...
Alan Thompson was inspirational as they triumphed 14-7 and reached the Grand Final.
Chart
* - Indicates only the replay match, and not the match ending in a draw.
Grand Final
In the grand final, Cronulla went to a 9-4 lead in the second half before Manly came back to hit the front 11-9. A Steve Rogers penalty goal squared the scores at 11-11 but he then missed a desperate late field-goal attempt and at full-time the scores remained locked. Thus, for the second consecutive season, the weary grand finalists were required to play a rematch. Although, on this occasion, the NSWRFL were forced to hold the replay three days later on the Tuesday instead of the following weekend due to the imminent
1978 Kangaroo tour
The 1978 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain and France comprised the Australia national rugby league team's fourteenth tour of Great Britain and ninth tour of France, and took place from September to December 1978. Coached by Frank Stanton and captai ...
, with the
Australian
Australian(s) may refer to:
Australia
* Australia, a country
* Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia
** European Australians
** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists
** Aboriginal A ...
team due to leave for England that weekend. The drawn grand final also forced the
Australian Rugby League
The Australian Rugby League Commission (ARL), formerly the Australian Rugby Football League known as the Australian Rugby League is an Australian rugby league football competition operator. It was founded in 1986 as the Australian Rugby Footbal ...
to hold off on naming the touring Kangaroos squad until after the replay, with as many as twelve players from Manly and Cronulla in contention to be selected.
Manly 11 (Tries: Mooney. Goals: Eadie 4.)
Cronulla 11 (Tries: Edmonds. Goals: Rogers 4.)
Grand Final Replay
The Tuesday rematch in front of 33,552 was Manly's sixth game in twenty-four days. It was the second Grand Final in a row to end up going into a mid-week replay with the
1977 Grand Final between St George and Parramatta also needing a re-match to decide the Premiers after the original game had been a 9-9 draw.
In the first half Cronulla had no answer to Graham Eadie's blind-side bursts. His display completely routed the hapless Sharks and Manly went to the break holding a 15-0 lead thanks to a try by Eadie in the scoreboard corner, one he set up for centre Russel Gartner in the same corner, and another 65 metre effort by Gartner after a sweeping backline movement saw him run into open space and easily outpace the Sharks’ defence to score in front of the Sheridan Stand.
The only point in the second half came from a
field goal by Eadie.
In the replay, as throughout their extraordinary finals campaign, Manly were inspired by the leadership of captain Max Krilich and coach Frank Stanton, their iron-man Terry Randall who had required numerous pain killing injections before every game of the finals just to be able take the field in what Frank Stanton called sheer mind over matter, their cool five eighth Alan Thompson and classy fullback and Man of the Match Graham Eadie.
As of the
2019 NRL Grand Final
The 2019 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the 2019 National Rugby League season and was played at Sydney's ANZ Stadium. The match was contested between defending premiers the Sydney Roosters and the Canberra Ra ...
, no player since Eadie has scored the combination of a try, a goal and a field-goal in a grand final.
The refereeing of Greg "Hollywood" Hartley in the replay and throughout the 1978 Finals series attracted criticism from coaches
Roy Masters,
Jack Gibson Jack Gibson may refer to:
* Jack Gibson (rugby league) (1929–2008), Australian player and coach
* Jack Stanley Gibson (1909–2005), Irish physician
* Jack Gibson (ice hockey, born 1880) (1880–1955), ice hockey player and executive
* Jack Gibs ...
and
Terry Fearnley
Terence Colin Fearnley (21 July 1933 – 4 March 2015) was an Australian rugby league footballer and coach.
Playing career
Fearnley was a long serving member of the NSWRFL's Eastern Suburbs team, playing 144 matches for them at a bleak period ...
, all of whom appealed to the NSWRFL to prohibit Hartley from refereeing their clubs' matches the following season.
Manly-Warringah 16 (Tries: Gartner 2, Eadie. Goals: Eadie 3. Field Goal: Eadie.)
Cronulla-Sutherland 0
Man of the Match: Graham Eadie
Venue: Sydney Cricket Ground
Attendance: 33,552
Referee: Greg Hartley
Player statistics
The following statistics are as of the conclusion of Round 22.
Top 5 point scorers
Top 5 try scorers
Top 5 goal scorers
References
External links
Rugby League Tables - Season 1978''Rugby League Tables''
1978 J J Giltinan Shield and WD & HO Wills Cup at rleague.com
{{National Rugby League seasons
New South Wales Rugby League premiership
NSWRFL season