City vs Country Origin

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**City vs. Country Origin**
General Information

First Season	1930
Website	City vs. Country
Most Wins	City Origin
Next Game	Coffs Harbour, May 3, 2007
2006
Winners	Country Origin

City vs Country is an annual Australian rugby league match that takes place in New South Wales between a City and Country side. It is played before the Rugby League State of Origin series and is often referred to as a selection trial for the New South Wales Blues team.

The concept of an annual clash between a City and Country team originally started in 1911 with a Metropolitan side taking on the Country team, the first match officially took place on June 10, 1911 with City taking the victory 29 to 8. It would take another nineteen years before an annual clash between an official City and Country side was agreed upon during the 1930 season.

The large majority of the players who now represent both the City and Country sides come from the National Rugby League competition in Australia.

1 Teams
2 History
3 City vs Country results
- 3.1 Overall summary
- 3.2 Year by year
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Teams


City Origin Team	Country Origin Team

[edit] History

Country V City (Sydney) has long played a part in New South Wales sporting history, with the first traces of the concept being linked back as far as 1886. The then Southern Rugby Football Union (later to become the NSWRU) would hold an annual `test match' between a Combined Countrymen and Metropolis sides, with the match to be used by the organisation for picking players for NSW.

The concept took off and by the early 1900's `Country Week' as it was titled became a major component of the Rugby calendar. This rivalry between City and Country continued to occur after Rugby League was formed in 1907, however it took League till 1911 before it held its first recorded City V Country clash, there is some indication that a match may have been played in 1910, however most likely due to the code still in its infancy it was not of a high enough standard to be published in the media of the time.

The representative match was played on a laissez-faire basis in League up until 1928 when the Country Rugby League and New South Wales Rugby League saw the value in making the tournament an annual match. This was understandable at the time for League, as many areas in Country NSW had not even heard of League, let alone seen the code till closer to 1928.

Matt King in action for Country, 2004

Newcastle was the first to take up the code in 1909 in its own domestic competition, which was boosted by the participation of the `Rebels' in the NSWRL Sydney competition in 1908 and 1909, with the Illawarra region soon to follow in 1910, but further out of Sydney it took longer for the code to start to make an impact.

By the time the match was made a permanent fixture, interest in the concept was high enough to make it sustanable, the only problem for the clash was it saw a large number of the best players from Country Rugby League snapped up by the richer Sydney clubs, draining the regional representative sides, and as a result assisting City to dominate the concept.

It wasn't till 1987 that the issue was addressed of “player drain” especially with the recent inclusions of Canberra, Illawarra and Newcastle in the NSWRL competition. The Origin rule, which was also used to revive the State of Origin concept, proved to be quite valuable in giving Country the basis it has needed to be a lot more competitive outfit. However it wasn't until 1992 that the men in Maroon and Gold recorded their first victory in the new style competition.

Country then won three out of the five years after their first Origin victory before the City vs Country concept was cut from the representative scene (much like the World Sevens and Kangaroo Tours) as a result of the Super League War.

The competition wasn't revived again till four years later, when the National Rugby League saw the value in the match in terms of media exposure, television ratings as well as the merit it taking games to the bush.

[edit] City vs Country results

[edit] Overall summary

Team	Played	Wins	Losses	Draw
City	81	63	17	1
Country	81	17	63	1

[edit] Year by year

The table below shows the results of the annual City vs Country games from 1930 to the present day. The colour of the year denotes the team that has won or retained the shield.

1930	Country	35	City	26
1931	City	17	Country	15
1932	City	27	Country	14
1933	City	47	Country	16
1933	City	17	Country	17
1934	City	28	Country	14
1934	City	32	Country	29
1935	City	20	Country	5
1936	City	41	Country	8
1937	Country	20	City	12
1937	Country	15	City	5
1938	City	42	Country	12
1939	City	38	Country	17
1940	City	28	Country	10
1941	City	44	Country	21
1942	Country	14	City	11
1943	City	37	Country	25
1944	City	17	Country	10
1945	City	41	Country	12
1946	City	31	Country	10
1947	City	33	Country	10
1948	City	28	Country	13
1948	Country	10	City	6
1949	City	23	Country	2
1950	City	51	Country	13
1951	City	24	Country	6
1952	City	23	Country	21
1953	Country	28	City	27
1954	City	50	Country	9
1955	City	31	Country	18
1956	City	32	Country	17
1957	City	53	Country	2
1958	City	55	Country	14
1959	City	37	Country	7
1960	City	22	Country	2
1961	Country	19	City	5
1962	Country	18	City	8
1963	City	35	Country	11
1964	City	27	Country	4
1965	City	32	Country	2
1966	City	18	Country	14
1966	Country	16	City	12
1967	City	17	Country	16
1968	City	34	Country	14
1969	City	27	Country	20
1970	City	22	Country	18
1971	City	17	Country	0
1972	City	35	Country	6
1973	City	33	Country	17
1974	City	23	Country	0
1975	Country	19	City	9
1976	City	47	Country	0
1977	City	36	Country	0
1978	City	30	Country	13
1979	City	39	Country	0
1980	City	55	Country	2
1981	City	38	Country	7
1982	City	47	Country	3
1983	City	30	Country	13
1984	City	38	Country	12
1985	City	18	Country	12
1986	City	34	Country	16
1987	City	30	Country	22
1988	City	20	Country	18
1989	City	16	Country	8
1990	City	28	Country	26
1991	City	22	Country	12
1992	Country	17	City	10
1993	City	7	Country	0
1994	Country	22	City	2
1995	City	16	Country	8
1996	Country	18	City	16
1997	Country	17	City	4