The 2012 NRL season was the 105th season of professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

club competition in Australia, and the first run by the newly formed Australian Rugby League Commission. The main competition, called the 2012 NRL Telstra Premiership due to sponsorship from

Telstra Corporation Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access, pay television and other products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 ...

was contested by the sixteen teams of the

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

. The season started with the

2012 NRL All Stars match The 2012 All Stars Match was the third of the annual representative exhibition matches played between the Indigenous All Stars (rugby league), Indigenous All Stars and the NRL All Stars team which was held on 4 February 2012 at the Gold Coast, ...

and culminated in the

2012 NRL grand final The 2012 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the 2012 NRL season. Played on Sunday, 30 September at Sydney's ANZ Stadium between the minor premiers Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and the second-placed Melbourne Sto ...

. The 2012 Toyota Cup season also took place alongside the Premiership. The McIntyre Final Eight System, in use since 1999, was replaced with the finals system previously used by the ARL in the 1990s. The 2012 Premiership was won by the

Melbourne Storm The Melbourne Storm are a rugby league club based in Melbourne, Victoria in Australia that participates in the National Rugby League. The first fully professional rugby league team based in the state, the Storm entered the competition in 1998 ...

, officially the club's second following the removal of their

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto ...

and

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

premierships, among other titles, due to salary cap breaches exposed in April 2010. They defeated minor premiers the

Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Belmore, a suburb in the Canterbury-Bankstown region of Sydney. They compete in the NRL Telstra Premiership, as well as competitions facili ...

14-4 in the

Grand Final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") 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. Sy ...

, which was held on Sunday 30 September at ANZ Stadium in Sydney.

Season summary

Halfway through the 2012 season, the NRL's Chief Executive Officer David Gallop stood down from his role after just over a decade in the role. Records Set on 2012 * The

won twelve consecutive matches between Rounds 11 and 24, the longest winning streak for the club in 8 years. They also won their first minor premiership in 18 years. * The

lost five consecutive matches from rounds 16 to 21 (around a bye in round 17), the longest losing streak in Craig Bellamy's coaching career and the second longest losing streak in the club's history. * For the first time since 1989, the

South Sydney Rabbitohs The South Sydney Rabbitohs are a professional Australian rugby league club based in Redfern, New South Wales, Redfern, a suburb of inner-southern Sydney, New South Wales. They participate in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership and are ...

finished in the top four, and they also won their first finals match since 1987.

Teams

Ladder

Finals series

For details on the finals see

2012 NRL season results The 2012 NRL season consisted of 26 weekly regular season rounds starting on 1 March, followed by four weeks of play-offs that culminated in the grand final on 30 September. The finals format for 2012 was also changed, with the new ARL Commission d ...

. The NRL returned to the top-eight system used by the ARL in the 1990s to decide the grand finalists from the top eight finishing teams. This replaced the McIntyre Final Eight System that was used for the past 12 seasons. Only four of last year's finalists were featured in this year's finals series:

Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles The Manly Warringah Sea Eagles are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Sydney's Northern Beaches. The team colours are maroon and white, while their namesake and logo is the sea eagle. They compete in Australia's premier rug ...

Brisbane Broncos The Brisbane Broncos Rugby League Football Club Ltd., commonly referred to as the Broncos, is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in April 1987, the Broncos play in Australia's elite com ...

and the

North Queensland Cowboys The North Queensland Cowboys is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Townsville, the largest town in North Queensland. They compete in Australia's premier rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL). Sinc ...

. For the teams that did not feature last year, the

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 Rugby ...

last appeared in 2010, the

in 2009, the

Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Cronulla, in the Sutherland Shire, Southern Sydney, New South Wales. They compete in the National Rugby League ( NRL), Australasia's premier rugby leagu ...

in 2008 and South Sydney in 2007. South Sydney made only their second finals appearance since 1989 and also their second preliminary final since winning the premiership in 1971. The last time the club made the preliminary final was also in 1989.

Chart

Grand final

Regular season player statistics

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

Attendance figures

Home ground figures

2012 Transfers

Players

Coaches

References

External links

NRL.com – Official site of the NRL
National Rugby League

footy.com.au {{2012 in Rugby League