Redcap's BRL

Brisbane Rugby League 1940 season

League Table

Team	Played	Won	Lost	Drew	For	Against	Diff	Points
Norths	10	9	1	0	290	100	190	18
Valleys	10	9	1	0	308	84	224	16*
Brothers	10	6	4	0	222	151	71	12
Wests	10	5	5	0	185	172	13	10
Souths	10	2	8	0	219	272	-53	4
Easts	10	0	10	0	69	514	-445	0

Rounds

Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5
Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9	Round 10

Finals

Stage	Date	Teams	Link
Minor Semi-Final	17 August 1940	Brothers vs Wests	Details
Major Semi-Final	24 August 1940	Norths vs Valleys	Details
Preliminary Final	31 August 1940	Brothers vs Valleys	Details
Grand Final	7 September 1940	Norths vs Brothers	Details

Pike Cup

Stage	Date	Teams	Link
Final	22 June 1940	Norths vs Valleys	Details

Skip to 1941 season

Of milestones and old men

The BRL was looking a bit aged in 1940, and it wasn’t just Henry Denny, the venerable Western Suburbs prop who brought his wonderful career to a close just a few weeks shy of his 42nd birthday.

Former Grammarians Charlie Ryan and Jack Stapleton were still guiding Norths around. Larry Gillespie came out of retirement to help Brothers. Valleys reunited with veterans Bill Dall and Gordon Robson. Wests brought back Gordon Macrae and Eric ‘the ghost’ Harris from England and resuscitated the career of five-eighth Alby Hunt after five years out of first grade. What was old was new again.

A lot of it was due to the war – many young men were enlisting and many of those who weren’t were engaged in essential activities on the home front, often away from home. Options were limited. Souths and Easts both played short on multiple occasions, and Easts suffered through probably the worst single season in BRL history, losing every single game and copping a record 87-8 evisceration at the hands of Norths in round 10. It was the third-straight game in which they’d conceded 70 points or more!

At the other end of the table, Norths and ‘Babe’ Collins dominated, winning their third title in seven seasons. The Babe had always been good, but 1939 and ’40 were probably his peak years, and in 1940 he passed a significant milestone.

He wasn’t the only milestone-passer either. Many of the BRL’s ageing population were moving to or toward the top of a few statistical categories. So with the league now just over 30 years old (a decent sample size), let’s have a look some of the statistical leaders.

Collins became the BRL’s all-time leading try-scorer in 1940, passing the mark set by Os Hardy in 1924. Interestingly, while both Collins and Hardy played in the outside backs from time to time, both were primarily forwards. The indestructible ‘Firpo’ Neumann and another forward, Bill Dall also passed the 50-try mark, just the fifth and sixth players to do so.

Player	Teams and Seasons	Tries
Edward Collins	Coorparoo (1930-32), Norths (1934-40)	65
Ossie Hardy	South Brisbane (1913), West End (1914), Wests (1917-19), Valleys 1920-24)	63
Bill Carter	Coorparoo (1929-32), Easts (1933-35)	58
Graham Crouch	Bulimba (1920), Coorparoo (1922-29), Wynnum (1931-32)	53
Bill Dall	Valleys (1932-38 & 1940), Brothers (1939)	52
Fred Neumann	Valleys (1929-40)	52

Another all-time mark was set by ageless Norths five-eighth Charlie Ryan when he passed Graham ‘Paddy’ Crouch’s record of 124 games set in 1932. Neumann moved up to third on the all-time list, while two other players, Henry Denny and his teammate Tom Purtell, became the eighth and ninth members of the 100-game club (premiership fixtures only).

Player	Teams and seasons	Games
Charlie Ryan	Coorparoo (1929), Grammars (1930-32), Norths (1934-40)	131
Graham Crouch	Bulimba (1920), Coorparoo (1922-29), Wynnum (1931-32)	124
Fred Neumann	Valleys (1929-40)	122
A. Jeavons	Coorparoo (1921-30)	116
Mike Kennedy	Coorparoo (1923-31), Wynnum (1932)	112
Eugene Robson	Valleys (1929-36), Norths (1937-38)	107
Tom Purtell	Wests (1931-40)	104
Henry Denny	Wests (1929-32 & 1934-40)	104
Bill Thompson	Coorparoo (1925-32), Easts (1933 & 1937-38)	102

Crouch and his long-time Coorparoo teammates Jeavons and Kennedy were the first three members of the club, which in some ways reflects Coorparoo in the 1920s. None of three played a lot of representative football and therefore played major roles in driving Coorparoo into the finals. But when the big boys came back, the ‘Roos often fell short, winning just one of the six premiership deciders they played during the decade.

Graham Crouch is nonetheless an interesting story. He did play some representative football and was the first Indigenous player to tour with a football team of any code when he went to New Zealand as part of a Queensland team also featuring Jimmy Craig, Norm Potter, Vic Armbruster, Cec Aynsley and a few other greats in 1925. He’s still fondly remembered by the Wynnum club, where he finished his career in the early ’30s.

Finally, let’s take a look at the BRL’s leading point-scorers. In 1940, Valleys half Bob Williamson became just the fifth member of the 300-point club, while Charlie Ryan and his teammate Norm Wright joined the 250-point club.

Player	Teams and seasons	Points
George Lockie	University (1927-32), Norths (1933-34)	442
J. Shields	Valleys (1929-33)	424
Graham Crouch	Bulimba (1920), Coorparoo (1922-29), Wynnum (1931-32)	341
Bob Williamson	Valleys (1937-40)	334
Mick Moloney	Carlton (1928-30), Brothers (1931-33 & 1935-37)	320
Norm Wright	Coorparoo (1932), Easts (1933-39), Norths (1940)	269
Charlie Ryan	Coorparoo (1929), Grammars (1930-32), Norths (1934-40)	264
Charlie Thorogood	Woolloongabba (1916), Coorparoo (1917-24)	261
Gerald Allman	Brothers (1921-27)	257

Williamson had appeared well on track to surpass George Lockie’s all-time record until he lost his job as Valleys’ first-choice kicker to Danny O’Connor in 1940. We’ll need to keep an eye on that…

Skip to 1941 season