| 1994 NSWRL season | |
| Teams | 16 |
| Premiers | Canberra (3rd title) |
| Minor premiers | Canterbury (6th title) |
| Matches played | 182 |
| Points scored | 7416 (total) 40.747 (per match) |
| Attendance | 2,732,389 (total) 15,013 (per match) |
| Top point scorer(s) | Daryl Halligan (270) |
| Top try scorer(s) | Steve Renouf (23) |
The 1994 New South Wales Rugby League season (known as the 1994 Winfield Cup Premiership for sponsorship reasons) was the eighty-seventh season of professional rugby league football in Australia. Sixteen clubs competed for the J J Giltinan Shield during the season, which culminated in a grand final match for the Winfield Cup trophy between the Canberra Raiders and the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs.
Contents |
This was the last premiership season to be administered by the New South Wales Rugby League. For the following year, control of the Winfield Cup would be passed on to the Australian Rugby League and re-branded as such, as part of the move to become a truly national competition.
On the first of June, the previous season's premiers, the Broncos played in the 1994 World Club Challenge match in Brisbane against British champions Wigan. Wigan defeated the Broncos 20 to 14 at ANZ Stadium in front of 54,220 spectators.
On 14 July the North Sydney club was fined $87,000 for breaching the salary cap.[1]
In total, twenty-two regular season rounds were played from March till August, resulting in a top five of Canterbury, Norths, Canberra, Manly and Brisbane who went on to battle it out in the finals.
The 1994 Rothmans Medallist was North Sydney forward David Fairleigh. The Dally M Award went to Manly-Warringah's five-eighth, Cliff Lyons who was also named as Rugby League Week's player of the year.
The 1994 season also saw the retirement from the League of future Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame inductee, Mal Meninga.
At the end of the 1994 season a squad of players from the NSWRL Premiership went on the 1994 Kangaroo tour.
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.
In 1994 the League and its advertising agency Hertz Walpole returned to the original 1989 recording of "The Best" by Tina Turner to underscore the season launch ad. Footage had been shot of Turner's performance at the 1993 Grand Final and a studio bluescreen shoot also took place during that visit ensuring a store of images that could be used in flexible adaptations for the final two years of Turner's association with the competition and the Winfield Cup.
The 1994 advertisement used the performance and superimposed studio footage of Turner into crowd and stadium scenes that replicated the Sydney Football Stadium. The closing scenes of the commercial made it appear that Turner was singing the song high up in the Sydney Football Stadium's stands in front of its identifiable stretched-sail roofing.
| Team | Pld | W | D | L | PF | PA | PD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canterbury-Bankstown | 22 | 18 | 0 | 4 | 537 | 340 | +197 | 36 |
| 2 | North Sydney | 22 | 17 | 1 | 4 | 517 | 291 | +226 | 35 |
| 3 | Canberra | 22 | 17 | 0 | 5 | 677 | 298 | +379 | 34 |
| 4 | Manly-Warringah | 22 | 16 | 1 | 5 | 605 | 311 | +294 | 33 |
| 5 | Brisbane | 22 | 13 | 1 | 8 | 544 | 316 | +228 | 27 |
| 6 | Illawarra | 22 | 11 | 3 | 8 | 484 | 387 | +97 | 25 |
| 7 | Cronulla-Sutherland | 22 | 12 | 0 | 10 | 432 | 401 | +31 | 24 |
| 8 | Penrith | 22 | 10 | 2 | 10 | 404 | 448 | -44 | 22 |
| 9 | South Sydney | 22 | 9 | 1 | 12 | 401 | 569 | -168 | 19 |
| 10 | Newcastle | 22 | 9 | 0 | 13 | 427 | 458 | -31 | 18 |
| 11 | St. George | 22 | 9 | 0 | 13 | 386 | 497 | -111 | 18 |
| 12 | Parramatta | 22 | 7 | 1 | 14 | 350 | 474 | -124 | 15 |
| 13 | Western Suburbs | 22 | 6 | 2 | 14 | 439 | 650 | -211 | 14 |
| 14 | Eastern Suburbs | 22 | 6 | 1 | 15 | 344 | 513 | -169 | 13 |
| 15 | Gold Coast | 22 | 5 | 1 | 16 | 363 | 618 | -255 | 11 |
| 16 | Balmain | 22 | 4 | 0 | 18 | 303 | 642 | -339 | 8 |
| Home | Score | Away | Match Information | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date and Time | Venue | Referee | Crowd | |||||
| Qualifying Finals | ||||||||
| North Sydney Bears | 12-26 | Canberra Raiders | 3 September 1994 | Sydney Football Stadium | Bill Harrigan | 33,641 | ||
| Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles | 4-16 | Brisbane Broncos | 4 September 1994 | Sydney Football Stadium | Greg McCallum | 34,891 | ||
| Semi Finals | ||||||||
| North Sydney Bears | 15-14 | Brisbane Broncos | 10 September 1994 | Sydney Football Stadium | Bill Harrigan | 36,011 | ||
| Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs | 19-18 | Canberra Raiders | 11 September 1994 | Sydney Football Stadium | Greg McCallum | 41,865 | ||
| Preliminary Final | ||||||||
| Canberra Raiders | 22-9 | North Sydney Bears | 18 September 1994 | Sydney Football Stadium | Greg McCallum | 41,941 | ||
| Grand Final | ||||||||
| Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs | 12-36 | Canberra Raiders | 25 September 1994 | Sydney Football Stadium | Greg McCallum | 42,234 | ||
| Canterbury-Bankstown | Position | Canberra |
|---|---|---|
| Scott Wilson | FB | Brett Mullins |
| Jason Williams | WG | Ken Nagas |
| Steven Hughes | CE | Mal Meninga (c) |
| Jarrod McCracken | CE | Ruben Wiki |
| Darryl Halligan | WG | Noa Nadruku |
| Terry Lamb (c) | FE | Laurie Daley |
| Craig Polla-Mounter | HB | Ricky Stuart |
| Darren Britt | PR | Quentin Pongia |
| Jason Hetherington | HK | Steve Walters |
| Martin Bella | PR | Paul Osborne |
| Dean Pay | SR | David Furner |
| Jason Smith | SR | Jason Croker |
| Jim Dymock | LK | Bradley Clyde |
| Matthew Ryan | Reserve | Brett Hetherington |
| Steve Price | Reserve | David Westley |
| Simon Gillies | Reserve | |
| Mark Brokenshire | Reserve | |
| Chris Anderson | Coach | Tim Sheens |
The Canberra Raiders were confident in the lead up and everything played into their hands from the whistle. Canterbury veteran prop Martin Bella dropped the ball from the kick-off and before too long Canberra had posted two tries.
Canberra legend Mal Meninga was given a champion's farewell as his "Green Machine" swamped the Bulldogs. Canberra's Paul Osborne also enjoyed a fairytale day. On the outer for most of the year, Osborne won a reprieve as prop after team-mate John Lomax was suspended for a high tackle in the final against Norths. Osborne rose to the occasion, setting up the first two Raiders tries in the opening sixteen minutes.
Meninga's 166th and final match for the Raiders ended perfectly when he scored the last try of the day after intercepting a pass from Jason Smith. Meninga outlasted the cover defence, running almost 40 metres and palming off his opposite centre Jarrod McCracken to score the try and send the crowd into raptures.
The Canberra Raiders had claimed their third premiership in what was at the time the highest-scoring grand final in history.
Canberra Raiders 36
Tries: Nagas 2, Furner, Daley, Nadruku, Croker, Meninga
Goals: Furner 4/7
Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs 12
Tries: Williams, Hetherington
Goals: Halligan 2/2
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||