Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs

Inaugural season: 1935

Home field: Accor Stadium, CommBank Stadium, and Belmore Sports Ground, Sydney, Australia

Owner: Bulldogs Rugby League Club Ltd.

Team colors: Blue and white

Overview

The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs is a professional rugby team that plays in Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL). The team is located in the suburb of Belmore, part of the Canterbury-Bankstown region of Sydney. The Bulldogs are one of the oldest surviving franchises in the NRL, having been admitted to its predecessor league in 1935. Canterbury-Bankstown has won eight premierships in its history, with the majority of its success coming in the 1980s. Historically, the Bulldogs have played their home games at the Belmore Sports Ground, but in recent years have split their home games between Belmore and two more modern venues.

History

Rugby originated from British football, a sport better known in North America as soccer. Rugby began as a variation of football/soccer in which players were allowed to carry the ball and run with it and tackle the opposing ball carrier. The sport gets its name from its place of origin—the Rugby School in Warwickshire, England. From there, rugby spread throughout the empire, becoming a popular sport in the British Isles and colonies of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. In North America, rugby evolved to inspire the sport that became American-style football.

In Australia, rugby was first played by amateur teams that formed across the eastern part of the nation. In 1908, several of the sport’s most prominent players banded together to form the first professional rugby organization in Australia. Called the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL), the league was made up of teams from Sydney, Australia’s largest city.

In 1935, a team from the Canterbury-Bankstown section of Sydney was admitted to the league. At first, the team was simply known as Canterbury-Bankstown and featured a logo with the letters “C” and “B” set in a blue shield. Informally, the club was referred to as the “Berries” or the “C-Bs.” Three years after joining the NSWRL, Canterbury-Bankstown won its first premiership, taking the title with a 19–6 victory over a team from eastern Sydney. In 1942, Canterbury-Bankstown won a second premiership. For much of the next two decades, the team struggled to recapture its early success. In 1947, Canterbury-Bankstown made the grand final—the NSWRL version of a championship game—but came up short. The team would not return to another grand final until 1967, again losing to another team from Sydney.

In 1978, Canterbury-Bankstown adopted the name Bulldogs and added a white bulldog to its logo. The change seemed to bring the team good luck as the Bulldogs made the grand final in 1979 and won the championship in 1980. That season began a decade-long period of dominance for Canterbury-Bankstown. With a showboating style that earned them the nickname the “Entertainers,” the Bulldogs battled the Parramatta Eels for the title of NSWRL’s best team throughout the 1980s. The Bulldogs won additional titles in 1984 and 1985 and won again in 1988. They advanced to the grand final in 1986 but lost to Parramatta. In total, Canterbury-Bankstown made six grand finals from 1979–1988 and won four premierships.

The 1990s were a turbulent time for Australian rugby. Two rival leagues developed in an attempt to expand the sport to a nationwide audience. The NSWRL reformed as the Australian Rugby League (ARL) in 1995, while the corporate-backed Super League emerged as a challenger for the ARL in 1997. Canterbury-Bankstown changed its name in 1995 to the Sydney Bulldogs. A year later, the team became the Canterbury Bulldogs and jumped over to play in the Super League in 1997. However, Australian rugby’s attempt to support two rival leagues lasted only one season, and the leagues merged operations in 1998 to form the National Rugby League.

Canterbury went through another name change in 2000, when the team dropped its geographical affiliation and went by the name Bulldogs. In 2004, the Bulldogs won their eighth premiership with a 16–13 victory over the Sydney Roosters. They returned to the grand final in 2012 and 2014, but lost both times.

The franchise returned to its roots in 2009 by readopting the name Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and reworking its logo to include the bulldog image from the late 1970s with the shield and “CB” design from the 1930s. For the first seven decades after its inception, the team played its home games at the Belmore Sports Ground, a facility first opened in 1920. As the stadium began to show its age in the twenty-first century, the Bulldogs moved most of their home games to ANZ Stadium, a multi-purpose venue built for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Despite the move, the team still played a few games a year on its traditional Belmore home field.

In 2020, ANZ Stadium (now Accor) was scheduled to undergo a renovation, prompting the Bulldogs to move most of their home games to Bankwest Stadium, a 30,000-seat facility in western Sydney. The Bulldogs also agreed to play one home game a year from 2020–2022 in Perth, the capital of Western Australia. The game in Perth was an attempt to increase the team’s profile and the NRL in the western part of the country. As of 2020, the Melbourne Storm were the westernmost franchise in the league.

In 2021, Trent Barrett, from the Sea Eagles, because the team's head coach. The Bulldogs played poorly in the beginning of the season, becoming the second team in the NRL to lose three straight games without scoring a point. In 2022, Barrett resigned, and Michael Potter was named interim head coach. The Bulldogs performed better under Potter but still finished twelfth. However, their performance did not improve in 2023 when the finished in fifteenth place.

Notable players

The first star player in Canterbury-Bankstown history was Eddie Burns, who played sixteen seasons with the team beginning in 1935, its inaugural season. He was an integral part of the team’s first premierships in 1938 and 1942. During 221 games with the team, Burns cored 62 tries, a franchise mark that would stand for decades. In rugby, a try occurs when a player touches the ball down on the ground in the opponent’s goal area. The term is short for “try at goal.” Les Johns played for Canterbury-Bankstown from 1963–1971 and was primarily known for his goal-kicking ability. Johns kicked career 232 goals, a mark that still ranks fifth in franchise history. Players accomplish a goal kick by dropping the ball and kicking it over the crossbar and through the goalposts. Johns was inducted into the Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame in 2008. Chris Anderson played for Canterbury-Bankstown from 1971–1984 and was a member of two premiership-winning clubs. His 94 tries are fourth in franchise history.

Steve Mortimer was a stalwart on the Bulldogs’ championship teams of the 1980s, playing in six grand finals and winning four premierships. In the 1985 grand final victory, he won the Clive Churchill Medal, the award presented to the game’s most outstanding player. From 1976–1988, Mortimer played in 272 games, second most all-time in franchise history. He was named to the Hall of Fame in 2008. Terry Lamb played with Mortimer on the 1984, 1985, and 1988 premiership-winning teams; he was also a member of the 1995 championship squad. Lamb, who played with Canterbury-Bankstown from 1984–1996, finished his Bulldogs’ career with 123 tries, second most in franchise history. Adding in his 41 tries before he joined the Bulldogs, Lamb’s 164 career mark is sixth all-time in NRL history. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2008.

The greatest player in team history was Hazem El Masri, who played his entire career with the Bulldogs from 1996–2009. Masri holds franchise records for tries with 159—eighth most in NRL history—and goals scored with 892. He also appeared in 317 games, also tops in franchise history. As of 2020, Masri ranked second in NRL history with 2,418 points scored. In 2004, he set the league’s single-season points record with 342 points—16 tries and 139 goal kicks. Nicknamed “El Magic,” Masri led the NRL in points scored six times during his career.

Josh Morris played two seasons with the St. George Illawarra Dragons before joining the Bulldogs in 2009. Before leaving the team in 2019, Morris scored 100 tries, third most in franchise history. His 149 career tries as of 2020 place him just outside the top ten on the all-time NRL list. Daryl Halligan sits second on the Bulldogs all-time scoring list with 1,490. From 1994–2000, Halligan kicked 630 goals, a mark that is also second in team history. Although he played most of his career with other teams, Michael Potter won the 1984 Dally M Player of the Year award with the Bulldogs. The honor is given to the most outstanding player in the regular season. In 2010, Ben Barba, who played with Canterbury-Bankstown from 2008–2013, also won the award.

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