Willow
Assistant Moderator
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In regards to the early years and Sydney having mainly inner city clubs. It shouldnt be forgotten that these were literally horse-and-cart days.
Geography wasnt as important as transport and financial considerations. The NSWRL was broke in 1909 and almost folded. At the time, they were simply trying keep the competition going.
To include teams from the far west was simply not practical.
Newcastle were included but transport considerations saw them unable to compete and they formed their own competition. When I was a kid, me a few mates rodes our pushbikes from Liverpool to Newcastle. It took about 12 hours over hilly terrain and what started off as a great adventure ended up just about killing us. I can imagine that in the early days of Rugby League, the 160 km trip would have taken all day... keeping in mind that there were no sealed roads, the trip would have been near impossible during wet weather.
The motorway and electric rail between Sydney and Newcastle are relatively new. 20 years ago neither was there.
Roopy might have to help here but my understanding is that in 1967, Newcastle had a vibrant local competition and were quite happy to be left out of the Sydney comp.
Penrith was the same, albeit closer than Newcastle, it was still miles away. It had a fearsome reputation for being the grave yard for many a team that made the long trek down the highway. Once again, this was before motorways. Up until recently, roads were pretty rough. The F4 motorway / freeway between Sutherland and Wollongong being one of the first built in Sydney and that was in the 70s.
Its interesting to note that Wollongong were keen to come into the comp in 1967 and even though they were relatively close and the freeway was on the drawing board, they were still knocked back in favour of Cronulla.
So when talking about the reasons why things evolved like they did, we have to take into consideration the infrastructure of the day. Thats not to say that the NSWRL were blameless. IMO, they have often been guilty of showing a lack of fore-sight. But we need to keep things in perspective.
Pepe: Its always good to have someone stick up for Cronulla but you should know that last year, Cronulla Sutherland RLFC's first grade side officially became the most unsuccessful team in the history of the comp.
Geography wasnt as important as transport and financial considerations. The NSWRL was broke in 1909 and almost folded. At the time, they were simply trying keep the competition going.
To include teams from the far west was simply not practical.
Newcastle were included but transport considerations saw them unable to compete and they formed their own competition. When I was a kid, me a few mates rodes our pushbikes from Liverpool to Newcastle. It took about 12 hours over hilly terrain and what started off as a great adventure ended up just about killing us. I can imagine that in the early days of Rugby League, the 160 km trip would have taken all day... keeping in mind that there were no sealed roads, the trip would have been near impossible during wet weather.
The motorway and electric rail between Sydney and Newcastle are relatively new. 20 years ago neither was there.
Roopy might have to help here but my understanding is that in 1967, Newcastle had a vibrant local competition and were quite happy to be left out of the Sydney comp.
Penrith was the same, albeit closer than Newcastle, it was still miles away. It had a fearsome reputation for being the grave yard for many a team that made the long trek down the highway. Once again, this was before motorways. Up until recently, roads were pretty rough. The F4 motorway / freeway between Sutherland and Wollongong being one of the first built in Sydney and that was in the 70s.
Its interesting to note that Wollongong were keen to come into the comp in 1967 and even though they were relatively close and the freeway was on the drawing board, they were still knocked back in favour of Cronulla.
So when talking about the reasons why things evolved like they did, we have to take into consideration the infrastructure of the day. Thats not to say that the NSWRL were blameless. IMO, they have often been guilty of showing a lack of fore-sight. But we need to keep things in perspective.
Pepe: Its always good to have someone stick up for Cronulla but you should know that last year, Cronulla Sutherland RLFC's first grade side officially became the most unsuccessful team in the history of the comp.
