The 1960 Brisbane Rugby League season is now live on Redcap’s BRL. A season summary and details of every match is available from the 1960 season page.
The great rugby league hegemonies – St George, Souths, Penrith, Wigan – tend to have a common feature: continuity. Some combination of coaches, players and officials who are there most if not all of the way.
Norm Provan and Frank Facer at St George; Clive Churchill, Jack Rayner and Alf Blair at different times with Souths; the Clearys and Isaah Yeo at Penrith; Shaun Edwards and most of the forward pack at Wigan. Things change but a few key pieces of furniture remain.
There were some prominent figures at Norths. Jim Hannam was there all the way through but only became a regular midway through 1960. Bill Pearson and Lloyd Weier for the first five years. Bob Bax from 1960. As this suggests, there was significant change at Norths between 1959 and ’60.
Clive Churchill didn’t return to Brisbane from the Kangaroo Tour. Ken Anderson and Fonda Metassa joined South Sydney. Jack Coyne accepted a captain-coach gig with Brothers in Cairns for 600 pounds, plus a job and accommodation. Mick Cox nearly went to Manly before also heading bush. John Catton departed, though I’m not sure to where.
So, all in all, Norths lost something like 13 players, including their fullback and captain-coach, halfback, five-eighth, both wingers and a key forward who was interim captain-coach in the previous year’s Grand Final. It showed, too.
After two wins to begin the season, Norths lost five and drew one of their next six games. The young halves combination of Tim Kiss and Brian Cook wasn’t working. Bax was talking a good game but not convincing many.
Jim Hannam came back into the team in round 9 and the debut of young back-rower John Bates against Easts in round 11 was a significant moment. But it seems some had already written off the premiers. The 32-5 win over early-season contenders Easts in round 11 was described as a “shock upset” by the “premiership outsiders”. And it wasn’t an unreasonable description.
While the victory over Easts was the third of ten straight wins which took Norths back into premiership contention, they were still labouring. Three of their next four wins were unconvincing one-point scrapes. It wasn’t until Bates and Hannam unleashed on Wynnum-Manly in a 41-13 thrashing in round 16 that Norths really launched.
Hannam was a guiding hand at half and the goal-kicker Norths had lacked early in the season. Bates was a revelation. Giant prop Lloyd Weier found form late in the season after a nasty injury in the interstate series. Harry Bates took over at fullback. Bill Pearson, now the five-eighth, played an understated but crucial role.
By the time Norths met the minor premier Valleys in the Major Semi-Final, they were humming. The Diehards were swatted aside 20-0. Despite a convincing win over Wests in the Preliminary Final and a better showing in the Grand Final, Valleys were ultimately not quite on the level. Weier was a colossus and Norths led pretty much all the way to win the Grand Final 18-15, a score which slightly flattered the Diehards.
For a while in 1960 it had seemed the bottom had dropped out of Norths. In 1961, the bottom dropped out of the league.
More complete BRL seasons are coming soon on Redcap’s BRL.
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