Adelaide Rams


The Adelaide Rams were an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Adelaide, South Australia. The team was formed in 1995 for the planned rebel Super League competition. The Rams lasted two seasons, the first in the Super League competition in 1997 and the second in the first season of the National Rugby League in 1998. The Rams were not a successful club, winning only 13 out of 42 games. However crowd numbers in the first season were the fifth highest of any first-grade club that year, but dwindled to sixteenth in the second season. The Adelaide club was shut down at the end of the 1998 season as a result of poor on-field performances, dwindling crowd numbers, financial losses and a reduction in the number of teams in the NRL. They remain the only team from the state of South Australia to have participated in top-level rugby league in Australia.

History

Background

Australian rules football (later, Australian Football League AFL)

The Australian rules football code, with origins as far back as 1843, had long dominated sport in the state. South Australia had two teams competing in the national Australian rules competition, the Australian Football League : the Adelaide Crows and, the latter starting in the AFL in the same year as the Rams first season in Super League. Port Adelaide's entry, propelled by a large local fan base in the South Australian National Football League competition, and the Crows successes in 1997–98 made it much harder for the Rams to compete for fan support. They were also competing against the popular Adelaide 36ers who played in the National Basketball League which at the time ran a winter season. Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, was considered an Aussie rules stronghold, and in the SANFL had the oldest Aussie Rules Football league, and indeed the oldest league of any code, in Australia, as well as a viable Rugby Union competition which had been running since 1932. The South Australian Rugby League also had a First Grade Premiership competition in place since 1976, while league been played competitively in Adelaide since the late 1940s.

NSWRL (later National Rugby League NRL)

The New South Wales Rugby League premiership begun in 1908, as a rugby league competition mostly for clubs in the Sydney region of Australia, a situation that lasted until 1982. The competition then expanded outside of NSW to Canberra, and to outside of Sydney with a team from Wollongong, and eventually in 1988 to Brisbane and the Gold Coast in Queensland, plus a new team from Newcastle. In 1992, the NSWRL decided to extend the competition further, by admitting four new teams for the 1995 competition, one from Western Australia, one from New Zealand and two from Queensland. The NSWRL also decided to test the viability of a rugby league team from the South Australian capital, and between 1991 and 1995 programmed five matches to be played in Adelaide at the famous Adelaide Oval. In 1991, the St. George Dragons and Balmain Tigers match attracted 28,884 people, at the time the largest attendance for any rugby league game in South Australia. The then record league crowd would prove to be the largest attendance of the entire minor round of the 1991 NSWRL season. Around 20,000 attended the two matches in 1992 and 1993, and around 10,000 in 1994 and 1995. Despite this evidence of popular appeal, the NSWRL, already in the process of setting up a 20-team competition, could not see their way to admitting a team from Adelaide and their preferred option outside of rugby league strongholds of NSW, Qld and New Zealand was to have a team from Melbourne and another in Perth. By the end of 1995, this was apparent as the ARL had already played two international Test matches involving the Australian Kangaroos in Melbourne, as well as three State of Origin games, with Game 2 of the 1994 State of Origin series attracting a then Australian record rugby league crowd of 87,161 to the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Formation

In 1994, the media company News Limited began developing a rival competition to the long-established NSWRL premiership: the "Super League" premiership. In response to this move the Australian Rugby League, the governing body of rugby league in Australia, took over the NSWRL. After 8 of the 20 teams in the ARL competition signed with News Limited to play in the proposed Super League competition in 1996 the organization began looking for further teams to make the new competition viable. In June 1995 the South Australian Rugby League, which governs the game of rugby league in South Australia, officially signed with Super League, who subsequently gave it a licence to form a franchise which would allow the SARL to create a Super League team. Another leading factor in the SARL's decision to sign with SL was the promise of greater financial assistance than they were receiving from the ARL.
The team was owned and supported by News Limited. Former Australian representatives Tim Pickup and Rod Reddy were named inaugural CEO and head coach respectively.
On 13 December 1995, the SARL officially launched the 'Adelaide Rams', the tenth and final team to join the Super League competition. In early March 1996, the ARL were successful in gaining a federal court injunction, a legal ruling that prevented the Super League from beginning competition in 1996 and the Rams were put on hold causing Tim Pickup to stand down from his post in the ensuing months. In mid-1996, News Limited successfully appealed this ruling, which enabled the competition to proceed. Wallaby rugby union halfback George Gregan was approached to switch codes to be the starting halfback for the new team for "seriously more money than" he would earn playing rugby union, though he opted to remain in the 15-man code. The first, and only Super League season, was held in 1997, and the Rams team was part of it.

Inaugural season

The SARL appointed the former Auckland Warriors marketing manager Liz Dawson as Pickup's replacement as the Rams' chief executive – the first female chief executive of any rugby league club in either the ARL or the Super League. The club had appointed St. George Dragons international back rower Rod Reddy to be their inaugural coach, along with two-time NSWRL premiership-winning and former Kangaroo tour Kerrod Walters from the Brisbane Broncos to be the first captain of the team. Most of the junior players were drawn from the SARL's lower grade competitions in Adelaide.
The club played its first premiership match on 1 March against the North Queensland Cowboys in Townsville and, after leading 16–4 at half time, eventually lost 24–16. This was also the first ever match of the Australian Super League's only season.
Their first home match, against fellow new team the Hunter Mariners in Round 3 on 14 March, was also the Rams' first win, and drew their record home attendance of 27,435 to the Adelaide Oval. This would actually turn out to be one of only two home wins for the season. The Rams also won four away games with their first being in Round 4 against the Auckland Warriors at the Ericsson Stadium in Auckland, New Zealand, but their overall record of 6 wins, 11 losses and 1 draw placed them second last on the Super League premiership ladder, one win ahead of North Queensland.
The Rams first home game attendance of 27,435 was the 4th highest attendance of the entire 1997 season, behind only the Grand Final at the ANZ Stadium in Brisbane, the opening game of the season in Brisbane and a Round 6 match at the Dairy Farmers Stadium in Townsville.
RoundHomeScorelineAwayDateVenueCrowd
1 North Queensland Cowboys24–16 Adelaide Rams1 MarchDairy Farmers Stadium17,738
2 Brisbane Broncos28–12 Adelaide Rams9 MarchANZ Stadium16,279
3 Adelaide Rams10–8 Hunter Mariners14 MarchAdelaide Oval27,435
4 Auckland Warriors12–16 Adelaide Rams21 MarchEricsson Stadium13,000
5 Adelaide Rams16–18 Perth Reds27 MarchAdelaide Oval16,294
6 Canterbury Bulldogs34–22 Adelaide Rams6 AprilBelmore Sports Ground7,234
7 Adelaide Rams10–20 Brisbane Broncos13 AprilAdelaide Oval17,633
8 Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks18–29 Adelaide Rams19 AprilShark Park10,112
9 Penrith Panthers16–22 Adelaide Rams27 AprilPenrith Football Stadium5,815
10 Adelaide Rams14–14 North Queensland Cowboys2 MayAdelaide Oval15,970
11 Adelaide Rams22–42 Canterbury Bulldogs23 MayAdelaide Oval15,022
12 Adelaide Rams18–34 Canberra Raiders1 JuneAdelaide Oval13,894
13 Perth Reds4–28 Adelaide Rams29 JuneW.A.C.A7,204
14 Hunter Mariners10–2 Adelaide Rams5 JulyTopper Stadium2,345
15 Adelaide Rams8–18 Auckland Warriors11 JulyAdelaide Oval13,278
16 Adelaide Rams6–28 Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks8 AugustAdelaide Oval7,231
17 Canberra Raiders58–16 Adelaide Rams17 AugustCanberra Stadium7,960
18 Adelaide Rams36–16 Penrith Panthers22 AugustAdelaide Oval11,211

Former Cronulla Sharks goal kicking utility back Kurt Wrigley was the Rams top point scorer for the season with 81 points from 5 tries, 30 goals and 1 field goal. Wrigley, and former South Sydney Rabbitohs and St George Dragons fullback Rod Maybon, were the team's top try scorers with 5 each. Super League's top point scorer for the season was Penrith Panthers centre Ryan Girdler who scored 197 points from 11 tries, 76 goals and 1 field goal while the competition's top try scorer was Canterbury Bulldogs utility back Matthew Ryan who crossed for 17 tries.
Following the unification of the Super League and ARL competitions after the 1997 season, a new National Rugby League competition was formed. This meant that three teams would be demised, as part of the rationalisation process aimed at reducing teams to an optimal number. With the introduction of the Melbourne Storm, and an agreement between Super League and the ARL to have a competition limited to 14 teams by 2000, the future for the Rams looked bleak. However, the Rams' home ground support, which averaged 15,330 fans each week, the 4th highest out of 22 teams across both the SL and ARL competitions, ensured that they remained in the unified 1998 competition.