1997 Super League (Australia) season
The 1997 Super League season was a breakaway professional rugby league football competition in Australia and the only one to be run by the News Limited-controlled Super League organisation. Eight teams which had broken away from the existing Australian Rugby League, in addition to the newly created Adelaide Rams and Hunter Mariners, competed over eighteen weekly rounds of the regular season. The top five teams then played a series of knock-out finals which culminated in a September grand final played in Brisbane between Brisbane and Cronulla.
Background
Super League was a rugby league competition that was held in Australia in 1997. It was created by News Corporation after an unsuccessful attempt to purchase the pay television rights to Australian rugby league games. After two years of legal battles the competition was played for a single season in 1997 before merging with the rival Australian Rugby League competition in 1998 to form the National Rugby League.Season summary
For this season video refereeing was introduced to rugby league for the first time. The Telstra Cup premiership was held over eighteen rounds. The season was dominated by the minor premiers, the Brisbane Broncos, who won 14 of their 18 matches, losing only to the Penrith Panthers, the Hunter Mariners and eventual runners-up, Cronulla. The Grand final was played at Brisbane's ANZ Stadium in front of 58,912 people; the ground record for that venue. Brisbane defeated Cronulla 26–8 to win their third* premiership. The Auckland Warriors had teams in the Reserve grade and two age-group grand finals but lost all three.The grand finals:
- Brisbane vs Cronulla
- Canterbury vs Auckland
- Penrith vs Auckland
- Brisbane vs Auckland
- Brisbane
- Canterbury
- Penrith
- Brisbane
The Under-19s Grade was called the Mal Meninga Cup
The Under-17s Grade was called the Terry Lamb Cup
At the end of the season, an Australian team was selected from the Telstra Cup Premiership's clubs to play in the Super League Test series against Great Britain in England.
The test matches
- Australia vs New Zealand
- Australia vs Great Britain
- New Zealand vs Great Britain
- Queensland vs New South Wales
- Queensland vs New Zealand
- New South Wales vs New Zealand
Teams
| Adelaide Rams 1st season Ground: Adelaide Oval Coach: Rod Reddy Captain: Kerrod Walters | Auckland Warriors 3rd season Ground: Ericsson Stadium Coach: John Monie → Frank Endacott Captain: Matthew Ridge | Brisbane Broncos 10th season Ground: ANZ Stadium Coach: Wayne Bennett Captain: Allan Langer | Canberra Raiders 16th season Ground: Bruce Stadium Coach: Mal Meninga Captain: Ricky Stuart | Canterbury Bulldogs 63rd season Ground: Belmore Sports Ground Coach: Chris Anderson Captain: Simon Gillies |
| Cronulla Sharks 31st season Ground: Shark Park Coach: John Lang Captain: Andrew Ettingshausen | Hunter Mariners 1st & final season Ground: Topper Stadium Coach: Graham Murray Captain: Tony Iro | North Qld. Cowboys 3rd season Ground: Stockland Stadium Coach: Tim Sheens Captain: Ian Roberts & John Lomax | Perth Reds 3rd & final season Ground: WACA Ground Coach: Dean Lance Captain: Mark Geyer | Penrith Panthers 31st season Ground: Penrith Stadium Coach: Royce Simmons Captain: Steve Carter |
Advertising
Teaser ads had been created by Mojo Sydney in 1996 around the theme of "Superleague: It's Coming". They featured Super League players performing superhuman feats. One notable execution included Canberra's Bradley Clyde inside a rodeo corral being stormed by a runaway bull with the suggestion that he is about to singlehandedly bring the bull to ground.By season launch in 1997 Foxtel's ad agency Young and Rubicam Sydney had the Super League account and created a space-themed ad with players running through outer-space and the tag-line "Super League: It's out of this world".
Super League Television commercials featured the song Two Tribes by Frankie goes to Hollywood
By mid season the account had moved again and Sydney agency VCD produced much of the game promotional and club fixture print ads that ran in newspapers throughout the season. This commenced VCD's association with Super League that would continue with the ARL post the re-unification.
Ladder
| Team | |||||||||
| 1 | Brisbane Broncos '' | 18 | 14 | 1 | 3 | 481 | 283 | +198 | 29 |
| 2 | Cronulla Sharks | 18 | 12 | 0 | 6 | 403 | 230 | +173 | 24 |
| 3 | Canberra Raiders | 18 | 11 | 0 | 7 | 436 | 337 | +99 | 22 |
| 4 | Canterbury Bulldogs | 18 | 10 | 0 | 8 | 453 | 447 | +6 | 20 |
| 5 | Penrith Panthers | 18 | 9 | 0 | 9 | 431 | 462 | -31 | 18 |
| 6 | Hunter Mariners | 18 | 7 | 0 | 11 | 350 | 363 | -13 | 14 |
| 7 | Auckland Warriors | 18 | 7 | 0 | 11 | 332 | 406 | -74 | 14 |
| 8 | Perth Reds | 18 | 7 | 0 | 11 | 321 | 456 | -135 | 14 |
| 9 | Adelaide Rams | 18 | 6 | 1 | 11 | 303 | 402 | -99 | 13 |
| 10 | North Queensland Cowboys | 18 | 5 | 2 | 11 | 328 | 452 | -124 | 12 |
Finals
Minor premiers Brisbane only played two finals games, both against Cronulla winning both convincingly.Bracket
Grand final
The Super League Grand final crowned a week of festivities, including a ball, street parade and massive game-night fireworks display, of the sort the Broncos' management had wanted the ARL to bring to Brisbane before the code's big schism in 1995. The game was on 20 September and despite stormy weather, a record crowd in Queensland rugby league history was at ANZ Stadium for the first ever night grand final and the first Australian top level grand final to be played outside Sydney. It attracted a ground record of 58,912 people, the first 50,000+ crowd for a Rugby League Grand Final in Australia since 50,201 attended the 1987 Winfield Cup Grand Final, the last to be played at the Sydney Cricket Ground. It was also the largest attendance for any sporting event in Brisbane since 52,000 attended the opening ceremony of the 1982 Commonwealth Games, also held at the venue, then known as the Queen Elizabeth II Stadium. Jon Stevens and Olivia Newton-John also performed in the pre-match entertainment.The match was broadcast live by Australian Pay-TV channel Fox Sports with Greg Clark, Wally Lewis and Gary Freeman providing commentary, with Peter Jackson on the sideline. It was also broadcast on delay on the Nine Network with commentary provided by Ray Warren and Peter Sterling.
Teams
Match details
The game was refereed by Bill Harrigan. The talented Brisbane side, featuring young up-and-coming stars in Darren Lockyer, Gorden Tallis and Shane Webcke overwhelmed a game Cronulla-Sutherland side. No points were scored until Lockyer's penalty kick in the eighth minute. In the twenty-second minute Mat Rogers equalised with another penalty kick. About three minutes later the next points came from yet another penalty kick by Lockyer, making the score 4–2 in favour of the home side. With just under seven minutes of the first half remaining, Allan Langer put a bomb up and into the Sharks left-hand corner which a leaping Rogers failed to secure and Steve Renouf picked up the ball and dived over for the first try of the match. Lockyer's conversion put the Broncos in front 10–2 which is what the score remained at for half-time.
Cronulla scored after less than four minutes of the second half when Wendell Sailor, returning the ball from a kick deep into his side's territory, passed the ball to nobody and it was chipped ahead by a Cronulla chaser and dived on by Russell Richardson. Mat Rogers converted the try successfully bringing the deficit back to two points at 10–8. In the 55th minute, the Broncos were on the attack and moved the ball out to the left for Renouf to score his second try of the match. Lockyer's kick, a metre in from the sideline was successful, making Brisbane's lead 16–8. About 10 minutes later, Renouf scored close to the same spot, becoming only the third player in history to score a hat-trick in a grand final. Lockyer missed the kick so the Broncos lead 20–8 with 14 minutes of the match remaining. An attempted field-goal kick by Lockyer in the 78th minute was charged down but Brisbane re-gathered the ball and one tackle later it was put through the hands out to the right wing, for replacement Michael Hancock to score the final try of the game. Lockyer kicked the extra two points with only seconds of the game remaining, so the final score was 26–8.
The win meant the Broncos were undefeated at ANZ Stadium all year and it kept the Broncos' 100% record intact in grand finals making it three from three, while the Sharks remained bridesmaids, at the time yet to score a grand final victory from three appearances. They would remain without a grand final win for another 20 years until their drought was finally broken in 2016.