Redcap's BRL

The ‘Students’ take the highest distinction

The complete 1928 Brisbane Rugby League season is now live on Redcap’s BRL. See how University from St. Lucia win their first BRL title, with a summary of every game and all the team lists and point-scorers available by clicking on each round in the 1928 season page.

University’s premiership triumph in 1928 was not only the Students’ first title, it completed a remarkable sequence in the BRL since the metropolitan clubs took control in 1922. In the space of seven seasons, all seven teams had won a premiership.

University and Carlton who’d propped up the ladder in 1927 finished in the top two places and eventually met in the Grand Challenge Final, while the previous season’s top two (Grammars and Coorparoo) dropped all the way to the bottom. Was all this the product of an admirable, though probably serendipitous, parity within the league, or just maddening inconsistency? As ever, it was probably a bit of both.

University, like many champions before and since, seemed to find a sweet spot between experience and youth, established players and new faces. Their coach Bob Williams received many plaudits in the press for his role in bringing it all together.

Halfback and captain J Hulbert, who’d been with Varsity through a few lean seasons, led them around superbly. The evolution of outside back J Irwin into a more than useful standoff provided an extra dimension. Forward leaders Hickey and Carmichael were joined by young back rower Vidgen and the versatile Jim Broadfoot. Not only did young centre George Lockie emerge as one of the league’s best, Varsity unearthed a pair of speedy young wingers in Nixon-Smith and the splendidly named C Adair.

And in a season where a few teams were plagued by consistently poor goal-kicking, University on any given day boasted multiple sharp-shooters. If young Lockie was a bit off, Hulbert was an able replacement. When fullback Bernie Brown, who they’d pinched from Brothers during the offseason, wasn’t there, his deputy Tomlinson was a very handy marksman. It made a difference.

While the success of the long-downtrodden Students was much celebrated – even by some supporters of other clubs – there was gathering gloom. While University and the young Wests outfit played attractive football, it seems the rest of the league tended toward stodgy, even negative tactics.

Crowds were reportedly well down on the peak of 1926. The strength of rugby league in Brisbane, Ipswich and Toowoomba, while great for Queensland as a whole, meant that the intercity Bulimba Cup was a much bigger draw. A highly competitive interstate series and a home Ashes in 1928 drew further attention away from matters at the local level.

One of the chief gloom-mongers was QRL Secretary Harry Sunderland, by now filling Redcap’s considerable boots at the Brisbane Courier. While Sunderland made some reasonable points – the folly of increasing ticket prices while crowds were down, for example – it was still a tad unseemly seeing him talking down the competition he’d done so much to build-up, especially considering the long-standing dispute between the BRL and QRL.

Things were about to get uglier.

More complete Brisbane Rugby League seasons coming soon on Redcap’s BRL.