Redcap's BRL

Reason prevails

The complete 1929 Brisbane Rugby League season is now live on Redcap’s BRL. See how University won their second consecutive BRL title, with a summary of every game and all the team lists and point-scorers available by clicking on each round in the 1929 season page.

Well, it was on. After years of simmering tension and the occasional skirmish, the BRL and QRL officially split in early 1929. While fascinating, the split is a rabbit hole I don’t intend to venture far down. The works of Max and Reet Howell, and Steve Haddan are worth a visit for more detail.

However, an alarming detail worth mentioning is that, with some powerful forces aligned against them and with Valleys and Brothers also committing teams to the QRL club competition to maintain the representative eligibility of their players, the BRL clubs considered the unthinkable: switching to rugby union. Thank goodness, reason prevailed – at both the start and end of the season.

After all, as Steve Haddan noted, the BRL had an established following, it was ensconced at the Exhibition Ground and had far better prospects than the rather cobbled together Brisbane-Ipswich hybrid that was the QRL competition.

On the field, University brought it home for the forces of reason, winning their second title in a row behind a familiar band now skippered by boom centre George Lockie. The emergence of centre Reg Jacobs and hooker Edgar White provided a new dimension to an already strong team.

The Students’ battles with a resurgent Valleys team, both in the Kaye Cup Final and in the semi-final, reportedly produced some of the finest league seen in Brisbane for years. Said the Sunday Mail about the semi-final on 14 September:

“For real football of the spectacular type, which rouses the excitement of the crowd by its brilliant conception and superior artistry – some described it as savouring of the uncanny – there has been nothing seen in Brisbane football in recent seasons to equal the play of University and Valley in the first half of yesterday’s semi-final…”

And after two titanic struggles with the Diehards, the Students overcame a strong Coorparoo team, who’d beaten them in the Pike Cup final earlier in the season, to win a well-deserved premiership.

The season itself was a bit of a hodge-podge, with the usual cup competitions taking on a bigger life of their own. It opened with the preliminary round of what was by now the President’s Cup, with the games played as part of the premiership fixtures. Come mid-season, and with the Pike Cup still ongoing, another cup competition was added, with the ‘BRL Officials Cup’ final played as part of the league schedule and won by Carlton over University.

There would be another slightly confusing hodge-podge in 1930 before the BRL-QRL conflict was finally resolved and things settled down a little.

More complete Brisbane Rugby League season are coming soon on Redcap’s BRL. Maybe once the cyclone has passed…