Brisbane Rugby League 1954 season
League Table
| Team | Played | Won | Lost | Drew | For | Against | +/- | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wests | 18 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 437 | 244 | 193 | 28 |
| Norths | 18 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 409 | 249 | 160 | 28 |
| Valleys | 18 | 11 | 7 | 0 | 422 | 267 | 155 | 22 |
| Brothers | 18 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 441 | 288 | 153 | 21 |
| Easts | 18 | 7 | 9 | 2 | 316 | 393 | -77 | 16 |
| Wynnum-Manly | 18 | 3 | 14 | 1 | 199 | 467 | -268 | 7 |
| Souths | 18 | 2 | 16 | 0 | 200 | 516 | -316 | 4 |
Rounds
| Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | Round 5 | Round 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Round 7 | Round 8 | Round 9 | Round 10 | Round 11 | Round 12 |
| Round 13 | Round 14 | Round 15 | Round 16 | Round 17 | Round 18 |
| Round 19 | Round 20 | Round 21 |
Finals
| Stage | Date | Teams | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minor Semi-Final | 21 August 1954 | Brothers vs Valleys | Details |
| Major Semi-Final | 30 August 1954 | Wests vs Norths | Details |
| Preliminary Final | 4 September 1954 | Brothers vs Norths | Details |
| Grand Final | 11 September 1954 | Wests vs Brothers | Details |
President’s Cup
The Final doubled as the round 12 game between Wests and Brothers.
| Stage | Date | Teams | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Final | 12 June 1954 | Wests vs Brothers | Details |
Pike Cup
The Final doubled as the round 15 game between Wests and Valleys.
| Stage | Date | Teams | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Final | 4 July 1954 | Wests vs Valleys | Details |
The middlemen
Between June and August, the old Sunday paper, Truth published a series of articles bemoaning the state of the BRL in 1954.
In one, it lamented that “what with Fijians [rugby union], Englishmen [rugby league], the Stadbroke [racing] and cold weather, Brisbane RL club footy just about ranks with bird-watching as a sport nowadays”. They could’ve thrown in Melbourne being confirmed as host of the 1956 Olympics and the Vancouver Empire (now Commonwealth) Games, which started late in the ’54 season.
Truth was many things – obnoxious, sensationalist, a gossip sheet, a scandal rag – and history would prove its dark warnings somewhat overblown. But they weren’t entirely wrong.
Club rugby league was struggling for attention. Even before they worried about other sports, there was the drain to Sydney and regional Queensland. Harold Crocker of Souths went to Parramatta in ’54, Brian Davies and Allan Hornery went to Ipswich, while champion Valleys winger Wally McDonald was lured away mid-season by a player-coach gig in Biloela.
Then there was the cumulative drain of international, interstate, inter-regional and intercity football. Reigning player of the year, Jack Veivers suffered a nasty eye injury playing for Brisbane in the intercity Bulimba Cup and missed most of the club season. Norm Pope of Valleys and Len Johnson of Souths were rarely sighted. The likes of Alex Watson (Wests) and Don Davey (Norths) often backed-up the day after representative fixtures.
It wasn’t sustainable. The middle men; the brokers; the ones who profit the most and produce the least always end up starving the thing which feeds them.
Truth was well ahead of its time in recommending (see below) that Brisbane, Ipswich and Toowoomba pool their resources at club level, in effect eliminating a layer (maybe two) of the interminable representative calendar. The eventual demise of the Bulimba Cup in the early ’70s would precede the golden age of the BRL from the mid-1970s until 1987.
The BRL was ultimately doomed anyway. With the exception of Redcliffe, none of the clubs managed to build a stable financial base. The golden age coincided with the broader stagnation of the Bjelke-Petersen years. The player drain to New South Wales (NSW) increased. The Brisbane Broncos, formed in 1988 and entered into what was then the NSW Rugby League, were (and for some still are) an ersatz state team; a way of indulging in the ‘us vs them’ theme of the so-called ‘state of origin’ format every weekend.
In other words, the middle men won, and won convincingly, destroying the thing which created them, but nobody was to know that in 1954.
What was left of the BRL at that time was still quite something. Wests’ holy trinity of future Hall of Famer Duncan Hall, test centre Alex Watson and the underrated lock Eric Bishop swept to the title, thumping Brothers 35-18 in the decider, after a similarly convincing demolition of Norths in the Major Semi-Final.
Norths took a step forward after two seasons of inertia, finishing level with Wests at the top of the table after surging past Valleys in the second half. They once again failed to win a finals game, but the first faint outline of their next premiership team, and what was to be the greatest hegemony in BRL history, was starting to emerge.
Brothers were closer to premiership success, and a few key pieces debuted in ’54, including centre Sam Tocchini and winger Morrie Lyons. Young forward tyro Brian O’Connor also took a big step forward, winning the Courier Mail’s player of the year honours in just his second season. Some say you need to lose one to win one. Brothers would need to lose two, but they got there in the end.
Valleys were early-season contenders and qualified for the Pike Cup Final, before fading away in the second half, with the loss of Pope, the abrupt departure of McDonald and an uncertain situation in the front row not helping. Kangaroo Ken McCaffery would join from Toowoomba in 1955 and take the Diehards to a new level.
Despite dark warnings, ’55 would be a new dawn. Crowds started to return. The BRL couldn’t do much about the drain from above, but they could regulate the drain of the borderline illicit Shiftworkers League, long a source of extra income for semi-professional BRL players who often competed in it under aliases.
Say what you will about the Shiftworkers League, it had produced a few handy players for the BRL. The middlemen always starve the thing which feeds them.
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