St. George Illawarra Dragons

Inaugural season: 1999

Home field: WIN Stadium, Wollongong, Australia; Netstrata Jubilee Stadium, Sydney, Australia

Owner: WIN Corporation and St. George Leagues Club

Team colors: White and red

Overview

The St. George Illawarra Dragons is a professional rugby team that plays in Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL). The team was formed in 1998 by a joint-venture merger of two existing clubs: the Sydney-based St. George Dragons and the Wollongong-based Illawarra Steelers. Splitting home games between stadiums in Sydney and the nearby municipality of Wollongong, the Dragons are the NRL’s only multi-city club. The merged Dragons played their inaugural season in 1999, reaching the NRL’s championship match, the grand final. Though the Dragons lost the game, they remain one of only two teams to post a runner-up finish in their inaugural NRL season as of 2020.

In 2010, the Dragons defeated the Sydney Roosters to capture their first championship of the NRL era. The following year, the Dragons won rugby’s World Club Challenge, an annual competition featuring representatives from the NRL and the United Kingdom-based Super League. As of 2020, these feats remain the greatest on-field successes in the club’s post-1998 history.

The St. George Illawarra Dragons hold an iconic, high-profile position in both rugby and Australian professional sports in general. Four members of the Immortals, an exclusive group of elite Australian Rugby Hall of Famers, are primary alumni of the club. In 2000, five-eighth Trent Barrett became the first member of the NRL-era Dragons to win the Dally M Medal as the league’s player of the year. Barrett joined Steve Morris (1979) and Michael Potter (1991) as the only three Dragons ever to earn the medal as of 2020.

History

Rugby initially evolved as an offshoot of soccer that allowed players to advance the ball toward the opposing goal with their hands. Histories of the sport note that much of the game’s early development occurred at the Rugby School in Warwickshire, England, which became its namesake. The first known set of standardized rules were published in 1845, after which the game spread throughout Great Britain and across the British Empire. It became a particularly popular spectator sport in Australia and New Zealand, where independent professional leagues formed during the early years of the twentieth century.

The St. George Dragons were founded in 1921, with the team taking its name from the south Sydney district of St. George in which it was based. In 1927, St. George made its first appearance in Australian pro rugby’s grand final, which has been held to determine the country’s rugby championship since 1908. At the time, the grand final was run by the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL), an NRL predecessor organization. St. George lost the match to South Sydney by a score of 20–11.

In 1935, St. George walloped Canterbury-Bankstown 91–6. As of 2020, this remains the most lopsided victory in the history of top-tier Australian professional rugby. Six years later, the Dragons broke through to win their first grand final title, defeating Eastern Suburbs, the reigning titleholder, by a 31–14 margin. St. George added a second grand finals title in 1949, and began a legendary run of Australian pro rugby dominance in 1956 by capturing the first of eleven consecutive grand finals victories. The run included an undefeated season in 1959. They were finally unseated as champions by the South Sydney Rabbitohs in 1967, but posted two more grand finals wins (1977, 1979) in the NSWRL era.

The Illawarra Steelers played their first NSWRL season in 1982, but achieved only limited levels of on-field success during the initial chapter of their history. During the 1980s, the club held the dubious “wooden spoon” as the league’s last-place finisher on three occasions, with the 1989 season marking a particularly painful low in which the club won only two of its twenty-two matches. The club’s fortunes changed in the early 1990s, when the Steelers made a string of four consecutive appearances in the NSWRL’s finals series playoff competition. However, the Steelers never made a grand finals appearance prior to the so-called “Super League war” that led to the 1998 formation of the NRL.

During the mid-1990s, Australian pro rugby went through a tumultuous period in which the supremacy of the NSWRL was challenged by the newly launched, corporate-backed Super League. In 1995, the NSWRL rebranded itself as the Australian Rugby League (ARL) and went toe-to-toe with the Super League during the 1997 season. The rival leagues coexisted for just the 1997 season, before economic realities forced the leagues to consider a merger. They amalgamated to form the NRL prior to the 1998 season.

In the NRL’s inaugural campaign, the St. George Dragons and Illawarra Steelers competed as separate teams. However, Australia’s radically changed pro rugby landscape quickly pushed the Steelers to the brink of insolvency while the Dragons sought to increase their appeal to a wider fan base to boost their own financial fortunes. These factors and the geographic proximity of the clubs, made their merger a natural fit, and the rebranded St. George Illawarra Dragons began play in 1999.

The Dragons performed well in the immediate aftermath of the merger, reaching the grand final in their first year but ultimately losing a close game to the Melbourne Storm 20–18. In 2000, fan favorite Anthony Mundine shocked the club by announcing his intent to retire from rugby to pursue a professional boxing career. However, Mundine’s announcement was offset by Barrett’s Dally M Medal win as the NRL’s player of the year. In 2005, the Dragons reached the preliminary final of that year’s finals series to end a string of middling premiership performances. The Dragons went on to reach the pinnacle of their NRL-era success in 2010 and 2011, winning the grand final (2010) and the World Club Challenge (2011).

As of 2020, the Dragons are captained by Cameron McInnes. Paul McGregor, who joined the Dragons as head coach in 2014, left the team in 2020. He was replaced on an interim basis by Dean Young. The Dragons have won fifteen Grand Finals titles in their history, tying them with the Sydney Roosters for second place on the all-time list behind the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

Notable players

Four players closely connected to the Dragons have been inducted as members of the Immortals, a prestigious group of Hall of Fame rugby stars that includes only thirteen players as of 2020. Being named to the Immortals is widely considered the greatest individual honor an Australian rugby player can earn. The initial list of Immortals was released in 1981, and included just four players, two of whom were Dragons. Center Reg Gasnier and forward Johnny Raper were both superstars on the team during its incredible run of championship success in the 1950s and 1960s. Center-fullback Graeme Langlands was enshrined as a member of the Immortals in 1999, owing in part to the elite leadership qualities he displayed as a member of the Dragons from 1963 to 1976. Imposing second-row forward Norm Provan was added to the Immortals in 2018. Provan was a member of the Dragons from 1951 until 1965, including a 1962–1965 stint as player-coach. Provan won ten grand finals titles with the Dragons during his career, marking the most championships won by any member of the Immortals as of 2020.

The Dally M Medal was first awarded in 1979, and was adopted as the NRL’s official “player of the year” honor in 1998. As of 2020, three Dragons have won the Dally M Medal as Australian pro rugby’s top player. Halfback Steve Morris won the award in the first year of its existence, and he also led the Dragons to a win in the 1979 grand final. Morris earned a second prestigious individual honor for his efforts when he was named winner of the Dave Brown Medal (now the Clive Churchill Medal) as the 1979 grand final’s player of the game.

In 1991, Dragons fullback Michael Potter became the second Dally M Medal winner in club history in recognition of his outstanding season. Potter had previously won the Dally M Medal in 1984 as a member of the Canterbury Bulldogs. Trent Barrett’s 2000 Dally M Medal-winning performance marked the third such feat in Dragons history. Barrett later went on to earn player of the year honors in the United Kingdom-based rugby Super League in 2007 as a member of the Wigan Warriors.

In May 2020, the Dragons unveiled their official “team of the decade” list for the 2010s on their website. The list included fullback Darius Boyd (a member of the Dragons from 2009–2011); wingers Brett Morris (2006–2014) and Jason Nightingale (2007–2018); centers Mark Gasnier (2000–2008, 2010–2011) and Matt Cooper (2000–2013); halfbacks Jamie Soward (2007–2013) and Ben Hornby (2000–2012); front-row forwards Leeson Ah Mau (2012–2018) and Michael Weyman (2009–2013); hooker Cameron McInnes (2017– ); second-row forwards Ben Creagh (2003–2016) and Tyson Frizell (2013– ); lock Jack de Belin (2011– ); and interchanges Gareth Widdop (2014–2019), Dean Young (2003–2012), Paul Vaughan (2017– ), and Beau Scott (2007–2012).

Bibliography

“Captain’s Call: McInnes Wants to See Action, Not Hear Excuses.” National Rugby League, 20 Jan. 2020, www.nrl.com/news/2020/01/20/mcinnes-to-captain-dragons-in-2020/. Accessed 16 Oct. 2020.

Del Rosario, Rafael. “Illawarra Steelers, the Forgotten Team.” The Roar, 3 Apr. 2014, www.theroar.com.au/2014/04/04/illawarra-steelers-the-forgotten-team/. Accessed 16 Oct. 2020.

“Illawarra Steelers.” Rugby League Project, 16 Oct. 2020, www.rugbyleagueproject.org/teams/illawarra-steelers/seasons.html. Accessed 16 Oct. 2020.

“Origins of Rugby.” Rugby Football History, 2007, www.rugbyfootballhistory.com/originsofrugby.htm. Accessed 16 Oct. 2020.

Parkinson, Andrew. “St. George Dragons Legend Norm Provar on 10-Player Shortlist to Become Next Rugby League Immortal.” The Leader, 21 June 2018, www.theleader.com.au/story/5481735/provan-on-immortal-list/. Accessed 16 Oct. 2020.

Smith, Mike. “Everything You Need to Know about St. George Illawarra Dragons.” Best in Australia, 2019, bestinau.com.au/st-george-illawarra-dragons-nrl/. Accessed 16 Oct. 2020.

“St. George Illawarra Overview and Historic Timeline.” St. George Illawarra Dragons, 2020, www.dragons.com.au/club-history/st-george-illawarra-overview-and-historic-timeline/. Accessed 16 Oct. 2020.

“Team of the Decade (2010s) Determined.” St. George Illawarra Dragons, 5 May 2020, www.dragons.com.au/news/2020/05/05/team-of-the-decade-2010s-determined/. Accessed 16 Oct. 2020.