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The National Rugby League (NRL) has its historical roots in NSW - with the national competition growing out of a competition largely based in Sydney. This changed in the mid 1980's when it was decided to firstly invite a team from Canberra and Wollongong (Illwarra) to join the competition and then not long after this teams from Newcastle, Brisbane and the Gold Coast joined the competition. The mid 1990's saw Rugby League go national - and then international - when teams from Perth (the Western Reds), Adelaide, Townsville (North Queensland Cowboys) and then Auckland were included in the competition. The burgeoning competition was an attempt to expand the Rugby League market beyond NSW and Queensland and initially this attracted much national marketing and publicity - so much so that a rival competition called Super League was established to take advantage of this expansion. Several established and new teams joined the rebel league and in 1998 two national rugby league competitions ran simultaneously. This lasted one year after exorbitant player payments combined with dwindling spectator interest led to an amalgamation of the two competitions under the banner of the National Rugby League (NRL). With this came rationalisation and a focus back on the east coast market - a new team was created in Melbourne but the Adelaide Rams, Western Reds and Gold Coast Chargers folded and several amalgamations took place in the years after. The
season
starts in late February and
the finals start in early September, with the Grand Final in the first
week of October. The
regular season is 26 games long. |