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1958 NSWRFL season

Rugby league competition

Field	Value
year	1958
competition	New South Wales Rugby Football League
imagesize	125px
teams	10
premiers	[[Image:St. George colours.svg	16x16px]] St. George
count	5th
minor premiers	[[Image:St. George colours.svg	16x16px]] St. George
mpcount	5th
matches	95
points	3050
attendance	1030272
top point scorer	[[Image:St. George colours.svg	16x16px]] Harry Bath (225)
top try scorer	[[Image:St. George colours.svg	16x16px]] Eddie Lumsden (18)
wooden_spoon	Parramatta
wooden_spoon_count	6th
prevseason_link	1957 NSWRFL season
prevseason_year	1957
nextseason_link	1959 NSWRFL season
nextseason_year	1959

The 1958 NSWRFL season was the 51st season of the New South Wales Rugby Football League, Australia's first rugby league football competition. Ten teams from across Sydney competed for the J. J. Giltinan Shield during the season, which culminated in a grand final between St. George and Western Suburbs.

Season summary

Having been wooden spooners in 1955, Wests embarked on a massive spending spree to recruit internationals Harry Wells, Kel O'Shea, Arthur Summons, Dick Poole, Darcy Henry and Ian Moir over a five-year period. The fruits of this labour began to show in 1958 when they finished in second place for the minor premiership and posed a challenge to St. George in the finals.

Harry Bath was the competition's leading goal scorer in 1958, with his St George teammate Eddie Lumsden the leading try scorer. Bath shattered the Dragons club's point scoring record with 225 season points from three tries and 108 goals.

Nineteen-year-old Reg Gasnier, later to be honoured as one of the Australian game's Immortals, made his Third Grade debut in 1958 and was immediately noticed, regularly scoring length-of-the-field tries.

The 1958 season also saw the retirement from the League of future Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame inductee, Clive Churchill.

Teams

North Sydney[[Image:North Sydney Jersey 1954.png	100px	center]]	Parramatta[[Image:Parramatta Jersey 1953.png	100px	center]]	South Sydney[[Image:South Sydney Jersey 1930.png	100px	center]]	St. George[[Image:St George Jersey 1948.png	100px	center]]	Western Suburbs[[Image:Western Suburbs Jersey 1953.png	100px	center]]

Ladder

Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts
1	[[Image:St. George colours.svg	16x16px]] St. George	18	16	0	2	480	187	+293
2	[[Image:Western Suburbs colours.svg	16x16px]] Western Suburbs	18	12	0	6	379	263	+116
3	[[Image:Manly Sea Eagles colours.svg	16x16px]] Manly	18	11	1	6	291	251	+40
4	[[Image:Newtown colours.svg	16x16px]] Newtown	18	10	0	8	297	252	+45
5	[[Image:Balmain colours.svg	16x16px]] Balmain	18	10	0	8	254	273	−19
6	[[Image:North Sydney colours.svg	16x16px]] North Sydney	18	9	0	9	279	322	−43
7	[[Image:Eastern Suburbs colours.svg	16x16px]] Eastern Suburbs	18	8	0	10	244	252	−8
8	[[Image:South Sydney colours.svg	16x16px]] South Sydney	18	6	0	12	246	391	−145
9	[[Image:Canterbury colours.svg	16x16px]] Canterbury	18	4	1	13	207	276	−69
10	[[Image:Parramatta colours.svg	16x16px]] Parramatta	18	3	0	15	202	412	−210

Finals

The developing Western Suburbs side which would become such a force at the beginning of the 1960s, was already building around the class of internationals Keith "Yappy" Holman, Harry "Dealer" Wells, Kel "Twigs" O'Shea along with their hard men Neville "Boxhead" Charlton, Mark Patch and fiery nineteen-year-old Peter Dimond. With a simple game plan of "retaliate first", the Magpies' aggression in the semifinal stunned St George who were coming off a coasting run through the end of the season. In spite of having beaten Wests twice in the regular season, the Dragons were mauled by them 34–10 in the major-semi final with Dimond dominating his opposite five-eighth Peter Carroll and forcing the Dragons to a sudden death final against Balmain for the right to defend their title.

The lessons from this loss sat heavily with St George – how an early forward onslaught designed to knock the spirit of the rival pack could determine the course of the entire game. For the next eight years, in all of their finals appearances, the Dragons would play a deliberate tactic of giving the opposition the ball in the first fifteen minutes and setting about demoralising them with brutal defence.

Home	Score	Away	Match information	Date and time	Venue	Referee	Crowd
Playoff
[[Image:Newtown colours.svg	23x23px]] Newtown	4–15	[[Image:Balmain colours.svg	23x23px]] Balmain	19 August 1958	Redfern Oval		10,430
Semifinals
[[Image:Manly Sea Eagles colours.svg	23x23px]] Manly-Warringah	10–22	[[Image:Balmain colours.svg	23x23px]] Balmain	23 August 1958	Sydney Cricket Ground	Darcy Lawler	27,985
[[Image:St. George colours.svg	23x23px]] St. George	10–34	[[Image:Western Suburbs colours.svg	23x23px]] Western Suburbs	30 August 1958	Sydney Cricket Ground	Darcy Lawler	38,857
Preliminary Final
[[Image:St. George colours.svg	23x23px]] St. George	26–21	[[Image:Balmain colours.svg	23x23px]] Balmain	6 September 1958	Sydney Cricket Ground	Darcy Lawler	39,132
Grand Final
[[Image:Western Suburbs colours.svg	23x23px]] Western Suburbs	9–20	[[Image:St. George colours.svg	23x23px]] St. George	13 September 1958	Sydney Cricket Ground	Darcy Lawler	62,283

Grand Final

St. George	Position	Western Suburbs
	FB
2. Eddie Lumsden	WG	2. Bernard Kelly
19. Ray Smith	CE	3. Harry Wells (c)
4. Geoff Weekes	CE	6. Darcy Henry
17. Brian Messiter	WG	5. Don Malone
8. Brian Clay	FE	4. Peter Dimond
7. Bob Bugden	HB	7. Keith Holman
13. Billy Wilson	PR	13. Mark Patch
12. Ken Kearney (Ca./Co.)	HK	12. Bede Goff
10. Harry Bath	PR	11. Neville Charlton
24. Monty Porter	SR	10. Bill Carson
9. Norm Provan	SR	9. Jack Bowman
8. Peter Provan	LK	8. Doug Jones
	Coach	Vic Hey

In an effort to negate Peter Dimond, Saints dropped Peter Carroll for the Grand Final, selecting lock and hard hitting defender, Brian Clay at five-eighth. From the kick-off, the record crowd saw a furious St George team lay into Wests. High tackles and punches were the order of the day and referee Darcy Lawler penalised the Dragons seventeen times to Wests seven.

Wests were unable to counter the onslaught which saw a ruthless Dragon defence advancing upon them at every opportunity although the score remained close for most of the match. Eventually with the Magpies subdued, Norm Provan and Bob Bugden cut loose, with Provan scoring two tries and Bugden snatching an intercept try near the end. Saints won the fight, and the match. For eighty minutes Clay was all over Dimond who ended the match dazed and bleeding.

The Sydney Morning Herald described the match as the most “savage” game of the season.

** St George 20** (Tries: N. Provan 2, Bugden, Lumsden. Goals: Bath 4.)

Wests 9 (Tries: Russell. Goals: Russell 3 )

Player statistics

The following statistics are as of the conclusion of Round 18. Top 5 point scorers

Points	Player	Tries
Harry Bath	3	98
Darcy Russell	2	85
Brian Carlson	10	58
Ron Willey	4	66
Gordon Clifford	0	62

Top 5 try scorers

Tries	Player	16	15	13	13	12	12
Brian Allsop
Eddie Lumsden
Jack Fifield
Peter Dimond
Darcy Henry
Kevin Considine

Top 5 goal scorers

Goals	Player	98	85	66	62	58
Harry Bath
Darcy Russell
Ron Willey
Gordon Clifford
Brian Carlson

Great Britain Lions Tour

Main article: 1958 Great Britain Lions tour

From May until August, the Great Britain Lions toured Australia and New Zealand. In Australia they played the three Test Ashes series against Australia as well as games against various sides including Sydney Firsts, New South Wales and a Sydney Representative Colts side that featured a young Reg Gasnier.

The team was coached by Jim Brough and was captained was Alan Prescott.

Note: Other than the Ashes Tests, only games in NSW listed

Game	Date	Result	Venue	Attendance
1	18 May	Great Britain def. Southern Districts 36–18	Wollongong Showground, Wollongong
2	21 May	Great Britain drew with Western Districts 24–24	Wade Park, Orange
3	24 May	Great Britain def. Newcastle 35–16	Newcastle Sportsground, Newcastle	21,126
4	28 May	Great Britain def. Northern NSW 27–17	Scully Park, Tamworth
5	31 May	Great Britain def. Sydney 20–15	Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney	48,692
6	4 June	Great Britain def. Riverina 29–10	Leeton	6,000
7	7 June	Great Britain def. New South Wales 19–10	Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney	52,963
8	14 June	def. 25–8	Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney	68,777
15	5 July	def. 25–18	Brisbane Exhibition Ground, Brisbane	33,563
17	13 July	Great Britain def. NSW North Coast 56–15	Oakes Oval, Oakes Oval, Lismore	5,541
18	19 July	def. 28–26	Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney	68,720
??	14 August	Representative Colts vs Great Britain	Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney
??	17 August	Coalfields vs Great Britain	Maitland Showground, Maitland

References

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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