New South Wales Rugby League season 1993

Infobox rugby league season
year = 1993
competition = New South Wales Rugby League


imagesize = 125px
caption =
teams = 16
premiers =
count = 2nd
minor premiers =
mpcount = 5th
matches = 182
points = 6173
attendance = 2625467
top points scorer = (180)
top try scorer = (22)The 1993 New South Wales Rugby League premiership was the eighty-sixth season of professional rugby league football in Australia. Sixteen teams competed for the J J Giltinan Shield and the Winfield Cup during the season, which culminated in a replay of the previous year's grand final between the Brisbane Broncos and the St. George Dragons.

eason summary

This season the 10-metre rule was introduced, whereby the defensive team would be required to retreat 10 metres from where the ball is being played, allowing more room for attacking players. Twenty-two regular season rounds were played from March till August, resulting in a top five of Canterbury, St. George, Canberra, Manly and Brisbane who would go on to battle it out in the finals.

On August 22, the Canberra Raiders beat the Parramatta Eels 68-nil, at the time the third biggest winning margin for a club match in NSWRL history.

The Canberra Raiders' Ricky Stuart won both the Rothmans Medal and Dally M Medal as the best and fairest player in the League in 1993, while Steve Walters, also from the Raiders, was named "Rugby League Week's" player of the year.

Teams

The lineup of teams remained unchanged from the previous season, with sixteen clubs contesting the premiership, including five Sydney-based foundation teams, another six from Sydney, two from greater New South Wales, two from Queensland, and one from the Australian Capital Territory.

Grand Final

For the second year running Brisbane and the St George played out the decider. The sides were largely unchanged between the two years. Only one Bronco (Peter Ryan) had not played in the 1992 grand final and four of the Dragons (Jason Stevens] , Nathan Brown, Gorden Tallis and Phil Blake). It was also Glenn Lazarus' fifth consecutive Grand Final appearance, having appeared the previous year for Brisbane and for three years before that with Canberra.

In the pre-match performance, Tina Turner performed "The Best" on stage at the Sydney Football Stadium alongside her saxophonist, US session musician Timmy Cappello.

Brisbane withstood an early Dragons barrage which brought much hope but no points. Then, following a Tony Priddle error, the Broncos opened the scoring after Kevin Walters threw a dummy and sliced through the St. George line then passed back inside to Chris Johns who dived over. Terry Matterson then also crossed for a soft try from close range to give Brisbane a 10–2 half-time lead.

Ian Herron kept St. George in touch with three penalty goals to make it 10-6, but the title stayed north of the border when Willie Carne scored two minutes from full-time. Thus Brisbane became the first team in history to win a premiership from fifth spot with a 14-6 win. After the match Tina Turner presented the trophy to Allan Langer and joined in Brisbane's post-game victory song.

Brisbane 14 (Tries: Johns, Matterson, Carne. Goals: Matterson 1/3)

St. George 6 (Goals: Herron 3/3 )

Clive Churchill Medal: Brad Mackay (St. George)

References

* [http://www.stats.rleague.com/rl/seas/1993.html Rugby League Tables - Season 1993] "The World of Rugby League"
* [http://www.rleague.com//db/year/1993/j_j_giltinan_shield_and_winfield_cup/index.php 1993 J J Giltinan Shield and Winfield Cup at rleague.com]
* [http://rugbyleagueproject.com/competitions/NSWRL_1993.html NSWRL season 1993 at rugbyleagueproject.com]
* [http://www.rabbitohs.com.au/The-Club/Tradition/Results---1991-2000.html Results:1991-2000 at rabbitohs.com.au]