1943 NSWRFL season

1943 New South Wales Rugby Football League
Teams	8
Premiers	Newtown (3rd title)
Minor premiers	Newtown (3rd title)
Matches played	61
Points scored	1527
Top points scorer(s)	Tom Kirk (116)
Top try-scorer(s)	Cyril McMahon (12)

The 1943 New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership was the thirty-sixth season of Sydney's top-level rugby league competition, Australia's first. Eight teams from across the city contested during the season which lasted from April until September, culminating in the Newtown club's Grand Final victory over North Sydney.^[1]

Season summary

The season is notable for Newtown turning around their second-last placing from the previous season, becoming minor premiers and later premiers. On the other hand, defending premiers Canterbury-Bankstown had a disastrous season, finishing last and picking up the wooden spoon for the first of only six occasions to date. Eastern Suburbs also slumped from the four to their lowest placing and poorest record since 1929, and were not to recover their former prominence until the late 1960s.^[2]

Teams

• Balmain, formed on 23 January 1908 at Balmain Town Hall
• Canterbury-Bankstown, formed on 24 September 1935 in Belmore, Canterbury-Bankstown
• Eastern Suburbs, formed on 24 January 1908 at Paddington Town Hall
• Newtown, formed on 8 January 1908 at Newtown Town Hall
• North Sydney, formed on 7 February 1908
• South Sydney, formed on 17 January 1908 at Redfern Town Hall
• St. George, formed on 8 November 1920 at Kogarah School of Arts
• Western Suburbs, formed on 4 February 1908

For the new season, proposals were made to change the jerseys of the clubs to a single colour. With the exception of South Sydney, who had a sufficient number of their traditional myrtle and cardinal jersey's, the other clubs had each submitted a single colour to the league. St George were to play in white, Balmain in canary yellow, Eastern Suburbs in green, Canterbury-Bankstown in maroon, North Sydney in scarlet, Western Suburbs in black and Newtown in their traditional royal blue.^[3]

Due to the on-going war, certain dyes and patterns were becoming expensive and hard to obtain. Jerseys with stripes, especially the popular "butcher stripes" that had been used by many clubs, were more expensive to manufacture. Materials and certain dyes, such as navy, were either rationed or used exclusively by the defence forces. As a result, jerseys became much simpler with the V pattern becoming a common design.^[4]

Balmain 36th season Ground: Leichhardt Oval Coach: Bill Kelly Captain: Merv Denton	Canterbury-Bankstown 9th season Ground: Belmore Oval Captain-coach: Roy Kirkaldy	Eastern Suburbs 36th season Ground: Sports Ground Coach: Dave Brown Captain: Harry Pierce	Newtown 36th season Ground: Henson Park Coach: Arthur Folwell Captain: Frank Farrell
North Sydney 36th season Ground: North Sydney Oval Captain-coach: Frank Hyde	South Sydney 36th season Ground: Sports Ground Coach: Jim Tait	St. George 23rd season Ground: Hurstville Oval Captain-coach: Neville Smith	Western Suburbs 36th season Ground: Pratten Park Coach: Alf Blair Captain: Jack Whitehurst, Eric Bennett

Regular season

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	F1	F2	F3	F4	GF
Balmain	WES +4	SOU −12	EAS −12	NEW +12	CBY +3	STG +2	NOR 0	SOU +14	EAS +12	NEW −28	CBY +33	STG +6	NOR +8	WES +5	NEW −1	X	STG −7
Canterbury-Bankstown	EAS +8	NOR −6	NEW −27	WES −11	BAL −3	SOU −10	STG −8	NOR −25	NEW −18	WES +8	BAL −33	SOU −2	STG −5	EAS +3
Eastern Suburbs	CBY −8	NEW −19	BAL +12	STG +20	NOR −8	WES +5	SOU +2	NEW −6	BAL −12	STG −2	NOR −14	WES −16	SOU −34	CBY −3
Newtown	SOU +17	EAS +19	CBY +27	BAL −12	STG −1	NOR 0	WES +4	EAS +6	CBY +18	BAL +28	STG +13	NOR −6	WES +1	SOU +15	BAL +1	NOR −5	X	X	NOR +27
North Sydney	STG −1	CBY +6	WES −3	SOU −3	EAS +8	NEW 0	BAL 0	CBY +25	WES +18	SOU +7	EAS +14	NEW +6	BAL −8	STG 0	X	NEW +5	X	STG +6	NEW −27
South Sydney	NEW −17	BAL +12	STG −18	NOR +3	WES +10	CBY +10	EAS −2	BAL −14	STG +9	NOR −7	WES +7	CBY +2	EAS +34	NEW −15
St. George	NOR +1	WES +9	SOU +18	EAS −20	NEW +1	BAL −2	CBY +8	WES +3	SOU −9	EAS +2	NEW −13	BAL −6	CBY +5	NOR 0	X	X	BAL +7	NOR −6
Western Suburbs	BAL −4	STG −9	NOR +3	CBY +11	SOU −10	EAS −5	NEW −4	STG −3	NOR −18	CBY −8	SOU −7	EAS +16	NEW −1	BAL −5
Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	F1	F2	F3	F4	GF

Bold – Home game
X – Bye
Opponent for round listed above margin

Ladder

The geographical locations of the teams that contested the 1943 premiership across Sydney.

	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts
1	Newtown	14	10	1	3	272	143	+129	21
2	Balmain	14	10	1	3	178	131	+47	21
3	North Sydney	14	7	3	4	193	124	+69	17
4	St. George	14	8	1	5	185	188	−3	17
5	South Sydney	14	8	0	6	161	147	+14	16
6	Eastern Suburbs	14	4	0	10	131	214	−83	8
7	Western Suburbs	14	3	0	11	132	176	−44	6
8	Canterbury	14	3	0	11	115	244	−129	6

Ladder progression

• Numbers highlighted in green indicate that the team finished the round inside the top 4.
• Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the team finished first on the ladder in that round.
• Numbers highlighted in red indicates the team finished last place on the ladder in that round.

	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
1	Newtown	2	4	6	6	6	7	9	11	13	15	17	17	19	21
2	Balmain	2	2	2	4	6	8	9	11	13	13	15	17	19	21
3	North Sydney	0	2	2	2	4	5	6	8	10	12	14	16	16	17
4	St. George	2	4	6	6	8	8	10	12	12	14	14	14	16	17
5	South Sydney	0	2	2	4	6	8	8	8	10	10	12	14	16	16
6	Eastern Suburbs	0	0	2	4	4	6	8	8	8	8	8	8	8	8
7	Western Suburbs	0	0	2	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	6	6	6
8	Canterbury-Bankstown	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	4	4	4	4	6

Finals

For the second year running, the minor premiership was decided by a playoff and again Balmain failed to win this important match, this time against Newtown. The following week both of these teams lost their matches to lower-ranked teams, and as a result, the victors North Sydney and St. George faced off to decide who would meet the minor premiers in the final. North Sydney won this match which allowed them to face the side they had beaten two weeks earlier again; this time in the final. Here, Newtown won the match and claimed their third and likely last premiership. The team was expelled from first grade after the 1983 season, and hasn’t returned since

Home	Score	Away	Match Information
			Date and Time	Venue	Referee	Crowd
Playoff
Newtown	11–10	Balmain	7 August 1943	Sydney Cricket Ground		47,230
Semifinals
Newtown	16–21	North Sydney	14 August 1943	Sydney Cricket Ground	Jack O'Brien	35,920
Balmain	5–12	St. George	21 August 1943	Sydney Cricket Ground	George Bishop	27,395
Preliminary Final
North Sydney	25–19	St. George	28 August 1943	Sydney Cricket Ground	Jack O'Brien	41,646
Final
Newtown	34–7	North Sydney	4 September 1943[5]	Sydney Cricket Ground	Jack O'Brien	60,922

Premiership final

Newtown	Position	North Sydney
13. Tom Kirk	FB	Stan Ridgway
24. Sid Goodwin	WG	2. Frank Collins
10. Len Smith	CE	3. Frank Hyde (Ca./Co.)
9. Norm Jacobson	CE	4. Ted Rudd
12. Bruce Ryan	WG	5. Ron Ainsworth
8. Tom Nevin	FE	6. Cyril McMahon
7. Paddy Bugden	HB	7. Johnny McLachlan
3. Gordon MacLennan	PR	11. Laurie Doran
Jimmy Brailey	HK	12. Frank Facer
2. Frank Farrell (c)	PR	14. Harry McKinnon
5. Keith Phillips	SR	15. Max Whitehead
4. Herb Narvo	SR	9. Don McKinnon
6. Charles Cahill	LK	10. Gerald Scully
Arthur Folwell	Coach

The final was played at the SCG before a record crowd of 60,922, though there were thousands more on roofs and vantage points outside the ground. Because of the War all service people got in, if they were in uniform, for free. Norths were missing two stars on active service who had contributed to their season's performance – lock Harry Taylor and full-back Neville Butler who was killed in an Air Force action not long before the final.^[6][7]

The teams line up before the 1943 Grand final

Police closed the gates two hours before kick-off leaving ten thousand fans locked out. Latecomers offered up to £10 for seats in the stand. The match provided a great betting orgy with bets of £100 common and more than £25,000 laid before the match began.^[8]

Captained by the colourful Frank "Bumper" Farrell,^[9] Newtown took on the fancied North Sydney side. The men from across the harbour were led by Frank Hyde and his Norths' side had shown no sympathy for his former club, having beaten Newtown three times already that season. Newtown countered the short-kicking tactics of the Bears into an advantage of their own, gaining a strong lead at half-time and going on to win 34–7.^[10] The 27-point margin was a grand final record. Stars of the day for Newtown were forward Charles Cahill along with backs Len Smith and Tom Kirk. It was the third premiership win for Newtown, and would turn out to be their last before being expelled from the top flight after the 1983 season

Newtown 34 (Tries: Goodwin 2, Ryan, Brailey, Phillips, Narvo, Smith, Farrell. Goals: Kirk 5)

defeated

North Sydney 7 (Tries: McLachlan. Goals: Rudd 2)

Newtown 1943 premiers

Player statistics

The following statistics are as of the conclusion of Round 14.

Top 5 point scorers Points Player Tries Goals Field Goals 100 Tom Kirk 0 50 0 80 Ted Rudd 4 34 0 69 Fred Felsch 3 30 0 49 Bob Andrews 3 20 0 41 Frank Driese 5 13 0 Top 5 try scorers Tries Player 10 C. McMahon 9 Len Kelly 8 Norm Jacobson 7 Sid Goodwin 7 Keith Phillips

Top 5 goal scorers Goals Player 50 Tom Kirk 34 Ted Rudd 30 Fred Felsch 20 Bob Andrews 18 Bert Cowley

References

1. Premiership Roll of Honour Archived 28 April 2007 at the Wayback Machine at rl1908.com
2. Easts: Season Summary Archived 19 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine
3. "Souths Retain Colors - The Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954) - 16 Dec 1942". Sun. 16 December 1942. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
4. "The story behind the Maroon jersey". Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. 22 April 2020. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
5. 1943 Grand Final at nrlstats.com
6. Pollard, Jack (1965). Gregory's Guide to Rugby League. Australia: Grenville Publishing. p144.
7. Middleton, David (24 April 2010). "Footy stars taken on battlefield". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 3 January 2012.
8. Pollard, Jack (1965). Gregory's Guide to Rugby League. Australia: Grenville Publishing. p82.
9. Coady, Ben (28 September 2009). "Grand final dramas". WA Today. Australia: Fairfax Digital. Archived from the original on 4 October 2018. Retrieved 15 January 2010.
10. "South's record margin in League Finale". The Sydney Morning Herald. Australia. 24 September 1951. p. 6. Retrieved 20 November 2009.

External links

• Rugby League Tables – Notes AFL Tables
• Rugby League Tables – Season 1943 AFL Tables
• Premiership History and Statistics RL1908
• Finals lineups and results Hunterlink site
• Unofficial North Sydney History Greg Fiveash site
• Results: 1941–50 at rabbitohs.com.au