NRL

 

The storied history, all-time records and laws of rugby league in Australia.

With a rich history dating back to its creation in 1908, the NRL Telstra Premiership is the closest elite sporting competition in the country and the Holden State of Origin series between New South Wales and Queensland is Australian sport’s greatest rivalry.

 

The National Rugby League (known as the NRL Telstra Premiership due to sponsorship) is a professional rugby league competition in Australasia which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand.

Tracing its origins back to the New South Wales Rugby League, which formed in 1908, rugby league competition in Australia had gone through numerous iterations, including the 1990s Super League war,^[3] by the time the NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership between the Australian Rugby League (ARL) and the News Corporation-controlled Super League.^[4] The partnership was dissolved in 2012, with control of the NRL going to the re-constituted ARL, which was re-structured with an independent board of directors and renamed the Australian Rugby League Commission.

The season typically runs from March to October, with each team playing 24 matches, with the highest placed team at the end of the regular season awarded the minor premiership. This is followed by a finals series contested between the eight highest placed teams from the regular season. The season culminates in the premiership-deciding NRL Grand Final.^[5] The winners play the World Club Challenge against the champions of the Super League.^[6] The reigning premiers are the Penrith Panthers, having won their fifth premiership at the end of the 2023 season.