The 2006 NRL season was the 99th season of professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

football in Australia and the ninth run by the

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

. The lineup of teams remained unchanged from the previous year, with fifteen clubs competing for the 2006

Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets related products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 stock index, and is Australia's largest telecomm ...

Premiership. Throughout the 26 rounds of the regular season ten teams from

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

(9 of them from the

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

basin), two from

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

and one each from Victoria, the ACT and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

competed for the

minor premiership A minor premiership is the title given to the team which finishes a sporting competition first in the league standings after the regular season but prior to commencement of the finals in several Australian sports leagues. Origins The etymolo ...

. Eight of these teams qualified for the four-week finals series, with the

Brisbane Broncos The Brisbane Broncos are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Red Hill, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in April 1987, the Broncos compete in the National Rugby League (NRL) and play their home games at ...

eventual victors over the

Melbourne Storm The Melbourne Storm is a rugby league football club based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia that participates in the National Rugby League (NRL). The club plays its home games at AAMI Park, and wears a purple and navy blu ...

in the

grand final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Synonymous with a championship game in North Ameri ...

. Melbourne finished the regular season first so were awarded the minor premiership, but this was later revoked due to the Melbourne Storm salary cap breach.

Pre season

Newcastle Knights The Newcastle Knights are an Australian professional rugby league team based in Newcastle, New South Wales that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership. Playing in red and blue, the Knights joined the top-tier competition in New ...

coach Michael Hagan signed a three-year deal to coach the

Parramatta Eels The Parramatta Eels are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL). The Parramatta District Rugby League Football Club was formed in 1947, and ...

, beginning in

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

. Hagan replaced Brian Smith, who had coached the Eels since

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

whilst Smith replaced Hagan at

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...

in an unprecedented coach-swap. In other coaching moves, Matthew Elliott was confirmed as the coach of the

Penrith Panthers The Penrith Panthers are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Greater Western Sydney suburb of Penrith, New South Wales, Penrith that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL). The team is based west of the cen ...

, beginning in 2007. *

halfback Craig Gower was fired as captain, suspended for four games and fined $100,000 ($90,000 to be paid to an NRL programme encouraging the responsible use of alcohol by league players and $10,000 to replace a destroyed golf cart) after a string of alcohol-fueled incidents at a charity golf function. *The Charity Shield heralded the unofficial start of the season, with the

South Sydney Rabbitohs The South Sydney District Rugby League Football Club, also known as the South Sydney Rabbitohs, is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Sydney suburb of Maroubra, New South Wales, Maroubra that competes in the Nat ...

defeating St George Illawarra 14-12 in their first home game at

Telstra Stadium Stadium Australia, currently known as Accor Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is a multi-purpose stadium located in the suburb of Sydney Olympic Park, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The stadium, which is sometimes referred to as Sydney Ol ...

on February 18. All NRL clubs engaged in a series of trials during the month of February. *

Wests Tigers The Wests Tigers is an Australian professional rugby league football team, based in the Inner West of Sydney and South Western Sydney. The Tigers have competed in the National Rugby League (NRL) since being formed at the end of the 1999 N ...

premiership-winning captain Scott Prince announced on March 3 he had signed a four-year deal with expansion team Gold Coast Titans, beginning in 2007. Prince relinquished the captaincy of the Tigers for the 2006 season.

New Zealand Warriors salary cap breach

The

salary cap In professional sports, a salary cap (or wage cap) is an agreement or rule that places a limit on the amount of money that a team can spend on players' salaries. It exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both. Seve ...

for the 2006 season was A$3.366 million per club for their 25 highest-paid players. The

New Zealand Warriors The Warriors are a professional rugby league football club based in Auckland, New Zealand that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership and is the League's only team from outside Australia. They were formed in 1995 as the Aucklan ...

were investigated by the National Rugby League over alleged salary cap breaches committed by the team's previous administrators. The club admitted to inflating its salary cap to the tune of nearly $1 million during the 2005 season. The National Rugby League fined the Warriors $430,000 and ordered the team to start the season with a four premiership point deficit. It was the first time in 99 years of rugby league in Australia that a team has started a season on less than ''zero'' premiership points. The Warriors appealed the decision by the NRL to deduct the four competition points but accepted the financial penalty. Prior to the beginning of the season, the National Rugby League confirmed that the points penalty would stand. The penalty would prove the decisive factor in the Warriors missing the finals for the third year in succession.

Teams

Season summary

The season began on March 10 with a match between defending premiers

and the St. George Illawarra Dragons, played at

. The Melbourne Storm won 20 out of 24 regular season matches to win the minor premiership eight points clear of the Bulldogs. However, in April 2010, the Storm were retroactively stripped of their minor premiership as a result of salary cap breaches occurring over the course of the 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons. The grand finals: * Brisbane Broncos vs Melbourne Storm (NRL) * Parramatta Eels vs Newtown Jets (NSW Cup) * Penrith Panthers vs Newcastle Knights (NSW Jersey Flegg Cup) The winners in all grades were: * Brisbane Broncos (NRL) * Parramatta Eels (NSW Cup) * Penrith Panthers (NSW Jersey Flegg Cup) The test match * Australia vs New Zealand The tri-nations Series * Australia vs New Zealand * Australia vs Great Britain * Great Britain vs New Zealand The State Of Origin Series * Queensland vs New South Wales

Venues

Sixteen stadiums regularly hosted National Rugby league matches, with a further six hosting at least one match in season 2006.

Advertising

In 2006 the NRL and their advertising agency MJW Hakuhodo stayed with the

Hoodoo Gurus Hoodoo Gurus are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1981 by Dave Faulkner (songwriter, lead singer and guitarist) and later joined by Richard Grossman (bass), Mark Kingsmill (drums), and Brad Shepherd (guitar, vocals, harmonica). Th ...

' "That's My Team" soundtrack for a fourth year, producing a treatment aimed to appeal to the fundamental hope of all players and fans: that it would be ‘their team’ who would win the

Grand Final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Synonymous with a championship game in North Ameri ...

. Capitalising on the enthusiasm generated by the

triumph of 2005 in only their sixth season, the campaign line and song chorus was changed to ‘That’s My Dream’. All fifteen NRL club captains featured heavily in the television and outdoor ads holding aloft the Telstra trophy. Eight young real life fans also featured in the TV commercial reflecting the origins of the game from backyard football scenes to Sydney beaches. Each was a fan of one of eight clubs who had not till then won the Telstra Premiership trophy and four different broadcast versions of the ad told the stories of their love of the game and each's dream of their own team's victory.

Dally M Awards

The Dally M Awards were introduced in 1980 by News Limited. The most prestigious of these awards is the Dally M Medal which is awarded to the Player Of The Year. The other prestigious award is the Provans Summons Medal which is the season's best player as voted by the public. As well as honouring the player of the year the awards night also recognises the premier player in each position, the best coach, the best captain, representative player of the year and the most outstanding rookie of the season. The awards night and Player of the Year medal are named in honour of Australian former

great Herbert Henry "Dally" Messenger. Team of the Year

Statistics and Records

* Clinton Schifcofske ran 3,741 metres with the ball in 2006, more than any other player in the competition. *The

set a club record for their biggest comeback win when they came from 18-0 down at half time to win 30-28 against

Canberra Raiders The Canberra Raiders are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the national capital city of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. They have competed in Australasia's elite rugby league competition, the National Rugb ...

in round 8. *The

set a club record for their longest winning streak with 11 games from Round 12 to Round 23. *

defeated

66–0 in Round 16. This set new records for New Zealand's greatest winning margin and South Sydney's greatest losing margin. *The

and

set the league record for the highest aggregate score in a match, with a total of 102 points scored in Newcastle's 70–32 win in Round 2. The previous record (97 points, between

St George Saint George (;Geʽez: ጊዮርጊስ, , ka, გიორგი, , , died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was an early Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to holy tradition, he was a soldier in the R ...

and Canterbury-Bankstown) had stood since 1935. *The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks set a then-club record for longest losing streak with 10 matches from Round 17 to Round 26. * Nathan Merritt became the first player to top the try scoring chart from the wooden spoon winning side.Champions in poor teams
''Sydney Morning Herald'', September 2006

Ladder

Finals series

The

went into the finals for the first time as Minor Premiers. They had a week off after their first finals win against the

12-6 to prepare for a preliminary final encounter, again the St. George Illawarra Dragons which was won by the Storm 24-10, earning them a spot in the Grand final against the

. The Broncos had surprised everyone in the previous two months. After a slight hiccup in the qualifying Final, going down against St. George Illawarra Dragons 20-4, they came back in the next two weeks, beating the

50-6 in the Semi-final and coming from 20-6 down at halftime to win 37-20 against the Bulldogs in the preliminary final.

Finals Chart

Grand Final

Player statistics

The following statistics are as of the conclusion of Round 26. Top 5 point scorers Top 5 try scorers Top 5 goal scorers

2006 Transfers

Players

Footnotes

External links

2006 NRL season at stats.rleague.com 2006 NRL season at nrl.com''Key features of the 2006 Telstra Premiership'' - article at menofleague.com
{{2006 in rugby league