The 2013 NRL season was the 106th season of 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 112 ...

club competition in Australia. The

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

's main competition, named the 2013 Telstra Premiership after major sponsors Telstra Corporation, was contested by sixteen teams during the regular season, which lasted from March to September, and resulted in the top eight finishing teams, who went on to contest the finals. The season culminated in the

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. Sy ...

, in which the

Sydney Roosters The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional Rugby league, Rugby League Football Club based in the Eastern Suburbs (Sydney) and parts of inner Sydney. The club competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) competition. The Roosters have won ...

defeated the

Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles The Manly Warringah Sea Eagles are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Sydney's Northern Beaches. The team colours are maroon and white, while their namesake and logo is the sea eagle. They compete in Australia's premier rugb ...

26-18 to win their first NRL premiership since

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

. The NRL season started with the

2013 NRL All Stars match The 2013 All Stars Match was the fourth of the annual representative exhibition matches played between the Indigenous All Stars (rugby league), Indigenous All Stars and the NRL All Stars team which was held on 9 February 2013. Once again the p ...

, which was played in February. The 2013 Holden Cup, the NRL's Under-20s competition, also took place alongside the Premiership, with most matches held before the first grade competition. The Parramatta Eels picked up the wooden spoon for the second consecutive season after winning only five matches for the season.

Season summary

Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks supplements saga

The 2013 NRL season was marred by a major investigation involving the

Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Cronulla, in the Sutherland Shire, Southern Sydney, New South Wales. They compete in the National Rugby League (NRL), Australasia's premier rugby league ...

' supplements program, which was alleged to have taken place during the 2011 season. Following an almost year-long investigation by ASADA and the NRL, a series of penalties were applied on the club, including, among others, the 12-month suspension of

Shane Flanagan Shane Flanagan (born 2 December 1965) is an Australian professional rugby league football coach, and was the Head Coach of the Cronulla Sutherland Sharks. He was appointed assistant coach of NRL team Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks in 2006 and was ...

as the club's head coach, as well as a $1,000,000 fine (with $400,000 suspended) and the deregistration of Trent Elkin as the club's trainer.Sharks fined $1m, Flanagan suspended
, NRL.com official website, 17 December 2013 Despite the off-field controversy, the Sharks were still able to reach the NRL finals for the second consecutive year, losing to eventual grand finalists Manly in the second week.

Teams

The lineup of teams remained unchanged for the 7th consecutive year. A report conducted by Brand Finance valued the Penrith Panthers club at $46.2m, the highest of any Australian sporting brand, while the Brisbane Broncos had the highest brand equity.

Ladder

Ladder progression

Finals series

For the second year the NRL uses the finals system previously implemented by the ARL competition from the 1990s (also used as the

AFL final eight system The AFL final eight system is an eight-team championship playoff tournament developed and adopted by the Australian Football League in the 2000 season. The eight teams, which are ranked or seeded in advance of the tournament, participate in a fo ...

) to decide the grand finalists from the top eight finishing teams. Both the seventh-placed

Newcastle Knights The Newcastle Knights are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Newcastle, New South Wales. They compete in Australasia's premier rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership. Playing in red and blue, th ...

and minor premiers

return the finals after last featuring respectively in 2011 and 2010, whilst the other six teams (Bulldogs, Storm, Rabbitohs, Sea Eagles, Cowboys & Sharks) were featured in the preceding finals series.

Chart

Grand final

Regular season player statistics

The following statistics are of the conclusion of round 26. Top 5 point scorers Top 5 try scorers Top 5 goal scorers

Season summary

Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks supplements saga

Teams

Ladder

Ladder progression

Finals series

Chart

Grand final

Regular season player statistics

2013 Transfers

Players

Coaches

References