Brisbane Rugby League (QARL) 1909 season
League table
| Team | Played | Won | Lost | Drew | For | Against | Diff | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valleys | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 62 | 34 | 28 | 9 |
| South Brisbane | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 60 | 33 | 27 | 8 |
| Toombul | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 27 | 63 | -36 | 4 |
| North Brisbane | 6 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 34 | 53 | -19 | 3 |
Rounds
Finals
| Stage | Date | Teams | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Semi-final | 24 July 1909 | South Brisbane vs North Brisbane | Details |
| Semi-final | 24 July 1909 | Valleys vs Toombul | Details |
| Final | 4 September 1909 | Valleys vs South Brisbane | Details |
Valleys triumph a riot
Beyond it being the beginning of a great competition, the 1909 QARL season was largely uneventful. Norths, who would go on to become part of Wests from 1915, began a short tradition of packing their team full of star recruits and failing to win much.
A number of the Toombul ‘tricolours’, including McComb, Powell, Dutton and the great George Duffin, would go on to taste premiership success a couple of years later with the merged Valley-Toombul team.
Souths would keep the nucleus of their team, including the flying winger Geordie Roussell, the versatile Alf Dreverson, goal-kicking forward Herb Brackenreg and back-rower G Pounds, mostly together for a few years (Brackenreg was one of Norths’ ill-fated ‘star’ recruits), with little success.
Perhaps the most notable moment of the season was the aftermath of the final when one of our heroes, referee Jack Fihelly, drew the ire of a section of Souths supporters, who allegedly rioted and laid siege to the dressing rooms after their team’s defeat. It was perhaps the beginning of a shameful tradition in terms of attitudes toward referees in these parts, though at least some of the details reported by the Courier were likely apocryphal.
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