Redcap's BRL

Three-pigs Brosnan and his Bretheren take flight

The complete 1942 Brisbane Rugby League season is now live on Redcap’s BRL. See how Brothers and their champion forward Eddie ‘three-pigs’ Brosnan won in a season disrupted by World War II. A summary of every game, the teams and point-scorers are available by clicking on each round in the 1942 season page.

On the opening day of the premiership season in late May, the mighty Brothers club, premiers in 1935 and ’39, took to New Farm Park (the Gabba had been commandeered by the military) for their game against Wests with just ten players. If there was a consistent theme to the season, it was this.

Everybody was struggling to get a team together with so many young men contributing to the war effort in one way or another. As Steve Haddan noted in Our Game, “clubs basically had to wait and see who turned up”.

Naturally, the three power houses of the north side dealt with this well, for the most part. Valleys still had a handy forward pack and Firpo Neumann. While 35-year-old Firpo’s powers were starting to wane, he remained a force to be reckoned with. The same could be said of Norths, with Firpo’s name swapped for veteran half Jack Stapleton.

Brothers had something else, though, in forward enforcer Eddie Brosnan (uncle of Wayne Bennett) who joined the Bretheren from Toowoomba in 1942. The inimitable Sunday paper, Truth remarked of their short-handed team in round one, “It didn’t matter much, for the ex-Toowoomba ‘pig’ Brosnan was just about worth any three forwards on his own”.

If you’re wondering, ‘pig’ had long been Truth’s favoured term for forwards, and Brothers’ pigs were peerless in ’42.

Despite their numerical disadvantage, they swatted Wests aside on opening day. Despite a strong challenge from Valleys throughout the season, they swatted the Diehards aside in the finals and were too good for Souths in the Grand Final. Yes, Souths.

At last, there was a contender on the south side. Something had been coalescing south of the river for a while, with promising fullback Bernie Johnson and centre Len ‘Bubbles’ Pegg emerging, supplemented by the acquisition of hulking forward Alby Nilsson from Norths.

Suddenly, it all came together. Pegg and Johnson became two of the league’s best players, while Johnson’s brother Dave emerged as a quality halfback. Five eighth Joey Houghton came back to the club from Wests and brought former state centre Gordon Macrae with him. Future international and St. George Dragons legend Harry Bath turned the forward pack from promising to formidable.

Souths would remain contenders for another couple of years before they finally broke through just as hostilities were drawing to a close on the world stage.

For the moment, hostilities raged and there were a lot of American troops stationed in Brisbane – “overpaid, oversexed and over here”, according to some. Whatever, 1942 saw the birth of Sunday football, which would later become a tradition and the stage for match of the round at Lang Park.

In ’42 it was a few games at the Ekka staged as entertainment for the visiting troops, and it only lasted a few weeks. It seems few of the visiting Americans were interested and, of course, quite a few of the locals disapproved.

When I first moved to Brisbane in 2002, there were still some restrictions on Sunday trading. Times they were a-changin’. Slowly.

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