The 1961 Brisbane Rugby League season is now live on Redcap’s BRL. A season summary and details of every match is available from the 1961 season page.
Norths’ quest for a third-straight premiership wasn’t without its difficulties. Newly recruited fullback John Jones played just one preseason game before heading back to Gundagai, leaving Harry Bates, a part of their 1960 premiership but a player it seems the Devils weren’t yet entirely convinced by, to play fullback.
Champion five-eighth and captain Bill Pearson was in and out of the team with a nagging injury, though he did come good for the finals. Pearson is one of Australian rugby league’s most underrated figures. He never played for Australia and lost all of his six interstate games for Queensland, but he was one of the most influential figures in the Norths hegemony and regarded by some as one of the finest players in BRL history.
Ultimately, Norths cruised to the minor premiership, before imperiously dismissing Redcliffe in the Major Semi-Final and then Valleys in the Grand Final. Master coach Bob Bax was even able to do something which still irritates some rugby league observers to this day – rest players, including hooker Greg Fowler, lock Ian Massie and Pearson, on the run into the finals.
As for the rest of the field, well, the bottom gradually dropped out. It wasn’t quite a weak field, at least not to begin with, but circumstances conspired to prevent the emergence of any serious challenger to the all-conquering ‘Nundah wonders’.
Wests still had internationals Barry Muir and Ken Day and were able to add the Lohman brothers from Toowoomba. But fullback Martin Gerry took a player-coach gig at Cunnamulla early in the season, giant prop Alan McMillan and prolific winger Barry Erickson were injured and Wests had little option but to bed-in some youngsters. They finished fourth but went down meekly to Valleys in the Minor Semi-Final.
After a very promising 1960 season, including a third-place finish and victory in the Peter Scott Memorial Trophy (previously the Pike Cup), Easts lost half Stan Neave to bush footy before the season and representative centre Bob Hagan to a new police posting in Townsville midway through. Fullback Noel Morgan battled injuries and the Tigers slumped all the way to the bottom.
Brothers lost winger Noel Garvey to Ingham, champion fullback Mick Shannon to retirement and try-scorer extraordinaire Frank Mellit to the head coaching job. They still had Peter Gallagher and Vince Hore, debuted some players who would be part of future challenges (Noel Cavanagh and Peter Mahoney) and remained in finals reckoning until the last few rounds, but didn’t have enough to stay there.
Redcliffe rose all the way to second place in just their second season but were plagued by misfortune – a freak workplace accident which left prop Ron Cordwell with a compound fracture in his finger – and ineffectiveness – much vaunted five-eighth Bob Newlands, a recruit from Toowoomba, started well but was very publicly dropped late in the season, perhaps pointing to some dramas behind the scenes. The Seasiders or Seagulls (whatever their moniker was at this point) bowed out in straight sets.
Then there was Valleys. The Diehards clambered over Redcliffe to make another Grand Final but were far from impressive. Captain-coach Norm Pope battled an ankle injury for much of the season. Mel Hansen was injured early and never made it back. Prodigal son Mick Mulgrew returned from Murwillumbah, though the issue of his eligibility, having not been formally released by the NSW Country Rugby League and the matter of £150 transfer fee, hung over his season like a bad smell. While he had some moments, Mulgrew wasn’t his former self.
Despite holding Norths close to half-time in the Grand Final, Valleys were blown away in the second half. The gap established by Clive Churchill’s 1959 team and expanded by Bax and his ‘outsiders’ toward the back end of 1960 had grown further and was showing no sign of closing.
More complete BRL seasons are coming soon on Redcap’s BRL.
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