Redcap's BRL

Norths‘ divine Babe and University’s broken-down truckie

The complete 1934 Brisbane Rugby League season is now live on Redcap’s BRL. See how the new Norths district club won their first premiership behind future club legend ‘Babe’ Collins, with a summary of every game, the teams and point-scorers available by clicking on each round in the 1934 season page.

Norths’ record-breaking 75-20 win over University late in the 1933 season was not just a team on the up ruthlessly dismembering a team heading toward bottom, it was with the benefit of hindsight a foretelling.

Just over a year later, a star-studded Norths team lifted the premiership trophy. Just under one year later, a broken University team withdrew from the BRL. To be fair, the fortunes of the two clubs had been diverging for some time and the amateur ‘Students’ were always going to struggle even in what was still barely a semi-professional league.

Adding salt to the Students’ wounds was the presence of their two-time premiership-winning coach, Bob Williams, and two-time premiership-winning centre, George Lockie, at the helm of the rising northerners. Their best player in 1933, Roy Nasser had also left for Wests in the offseason and there really wasn’t much left.

Speaking of Lockie, he didn’t quite make it all the way to the Grand Final in ’34. The dashing centre got married just before the finals and retired from rugby league on the spot. He did go on to become a first-class cricketer and a renowned educator, including a stint as Principal of Brisbane State High.

After a few heavy defeats and with their season pretty much done, the desperate Students even turned to former Brother Harold Hamalainen, by all accounts a jovial truck driver and once formidable forward, who’d washed up at St. Lucia after six years in rugby union. They then turned to rugby union.

Judging by subsequent reports, University enjoyed quite a bit of success shortly after their return. Perhaps it was a case of their defection improving the overall quality of both codes.

While the greatest Norths teams are unquestionably those of the 1950’s and ’60’s who won eight titles in 11 years, the 1934 vintage was man-for-man one of the best teams of its era. They had the best of the Grammars teams who’d come close in 1931 and ’32, some emerging talents in winger Des Simpson and rake Bill Norris, the rangey forward Vic Rudd signed from Wests and, of course, the old University connection. Above all was Edward ‘Babe’ Collins, the former Coorparoo forward signed after he’d spent 1933 playing in Ipswich, who firmly established himself as one the game’s best in ’34 and dominated the Grand Final win against Wests.

There wasn’t much movement elsewhere. Wests won a third-straight minor premiership and the Pike Cup but again fell short on the big day. Souths remained anchored to the bottom. Brothers failed to build on a promising 1933 season. Easts remained competitive but continued to drift as more of Coorparoo’s great generation of the 1920s departed.

1934 also marked the end of the old challenger rule which had been in place since 1911, with the BRL switching to minor and major semi-finals, a system based on largely the same principle as the challenger rule (an advantage for the highest-placed finisher/s), just without, for example, the perverse outcome of the minor premiers being guaranteed a spot in the grand final even if they lost their semi-final.

The BRL was a little ahead of the game as a whole at this point.

More complete BRL seasons are coming soon on Redcap’s BRL.