The complete 1955 Brisbane Rugby League season is now live on Redcap’s BRL. A summary of every game, the teams and point-scorers are available by clicking on each round in the 1955 season page.
It had been almost a decade – an eternity in Diehard years – since Valleys had tasted premiership success. In the late 1940s and early ’50s, they even suffered a prolonged and unheard of period of struggle, including their first wooden spoon in ’48.
A generation of players had left or aged in place and the club couldn’t find replacements of the standard they’d become accustomed. While ‘Firpo’ Neumann was still at the club, his on-field presence was sorely missed. For a while there wasn’t a figurehead; a personification of the Diehard standard. Some even feared that the inner-city club might wither in the face of demographic change, just like the Glebe Dirty Reds had down in Sydney.
After so much success, a fallow period was always likely to prompt some panic. As it happened, some smart recruitment and the equalisation principle which had been observable in the BRL, in one form or another, since day dot in 1909 helped Valleys back into contention.
And they duly roared back with a team featuring champion fullback Norm Pope, the Mulgrew brothers, Athol Plater, Ray Edwards, son of club legend ‘Fatty’ Edwards, new winger John ‘Dick’ Davies and Wollongong recruit Ben Fotheringham, winning the premiership undefeated over the course of an 18-game season, plus finals (though they did lose the stand-alone President’s Cup Final to Wests in early June).
They even withstood a long-term injury to Rod Siebenhausen, the loss of prolific winger Garry Barnett for a couple of stretches, including the Grand Final, and a disrupted campaign for their star recruit Ken McCaffery, whose registration was delayed after he shifted from Toowoomba, before he suffered an injury in mid-season.
As an aside, a lesser-known part of McCaffery’s story is the minor role he played as a child in the late 1930s in one of the most significant legal cases in Australian history, Chester v Waverley Municipal Council. The story of the case, McCaffery’s involvement but mostly the role of Doc Evatt, who would serve as patron of the NSW Rugby League for many years, was told in Gideon Haigh’s book ‘The Brilliant Boy’.
Back to the point: the Diehards were occasionally pushed but rarely threatened and ultimately cruised to the title in ’55, finishing a whopping 12 points clear atop the table, before dismissing Wests and then Brothers in the Major Semi-Final and Grand Final respectively.
Which might give you an idea of where I’m heading with this. The ’55 Diehards deserve to be regarded as a great team, but I’m not sure they were on the same level as the Valleys team of ’38, Wests in ’22 or Carlton in ’30.
Their opposition was either weak, in flux or both, with players coming and going all over the place.
For the second time since 1950, Easts lost most of their best players, but this time they slumped all the way to the bottom. They did debut brothers Paul and Pat Pyers from Grafton, with Paul in particular going on to make a useful contribution in the years ahead.
Wynnum produced another incremental improvement and looked at one stage like they might compete for fourth place, but again, the competition down there was weak and they ultimately faded away on the run home.
Souths had arguably the league’s best hooker (Alan Hornery, back from Ipswich) and halfback (Norm McLean), as well as international forward Kel O’Shea who stopped by for half a season on his way to Wests in Sydney, but not much else.
The Norths team of George Atherden, Ron Greenwood and Ray Johnstone had been good for a few years without ever managing to cross the threshold to another level. The Devils were in the process of retooling for what would be a historic run of success, but were still some way off.
Wests looked genuine contenders and did finish second but were gradually hollowed out over the season. Smart young half Darcy Ryan and veteran forward Felix Creedy, among others, were injured, centres Joe Jackson and Geoff Little decamped for Gladstone mid-season. The splendidly named lock Pen Wyvill was also set to leave for Mitchell before the deal fell through at the last moment. They were a shell by finals time.
The Brothers team which qualified for the Grand Final was quite different to the team which started the season. International prop Brian Davies was back from Ipswich but, like McCaffery, would have to wait for his paperwork to be approved. The versatile Mick Shannon eventually claimed the fullback spot over incumbent Dinny Dall, while much-touted halfback recruit Frank Mellit flattered to deceive, eventually ending up on the wing, where he excelled ahead of the previously free-scoring Don Alroe.
Even while Bob Bax (now Brothers coach) was around and playing representative football, there’d been a suspicion that Brothers actually played their best with the clever Mick McNamara at half. McNamara was rumoured to be considering retirement at the start of the season, before he again re-emerged to lead Brothers to another Grand Final.
A second-straight defeat on the big day must have been demoralising for the Bretheren, but it seems they figured out a few key pieces of the puzzle during the ’55 season.
More complete BRL seasons are coming soon on Redcap’s BRL.
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