The 1993 NSWRL season (known as the 1993 Winfield Cup Premiership for sponsorship reasons) was the eighty-sixth season of professional rugby league football in Australia. The New South Wales Rugby League's sixteen teams competed for the J. J. Giltinan Shield during the season, which culminated in a replay of the previous year's grand final for the Winfield Cup trophy between the Brisbane Broncos and St. George Dragons. As Sydney celebrated winning the 2000 Olympic Games, Brisbane spoiled the party by retaining the NSWRL premiership.
Season summary This season the 10-metre rule was introduced, which required the defensive team to retreat 10 metres from where the ball is being played, allowing more room for attacking players.
In February, the Eastern Suburbs Roosters won the Rugby League World Sevens tournament, while in March the Canberra Raiders won the Challenge Cup final 20–18 against the Western Suburbs Magpies in Dubbo.
Reigning premiers Brisbane Broncos moved from their original home ground Lang Park to QE II Stadium south of the city. The move brought increased attendance figures, with the club attracting 51,517 fans to their first match at the venue in round 3 against the Parramatta Eels. The league broke an 85-year-old attendance record when 129,018 fans attended matches during round 4.
1992 runners-up St. George won their first six matches of the season to be the last undefeated team. Their streak broken by the Broncos at Kogarah Oval in round 7 with the visitors taking a tight 20–14 victory. By the middle of the season St. George and the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs would vie for the top rungs on the ladder, with the Bulldogs taking the minor premiership with a better points differential after both teams finished with 17 wins each for the season.
In June the competition returned to play matches at the Sydney Cricket Ground for the first time since the 1987 season. Three matches were played at the venue, with the final match between St. George and Canterbury attracting an attendance of 35,641.
On 16 June the Gold Coast Seagulls were fined $50,000 for exceeding their 1992 salary cap by $150,000.
On 22 August the Canberra Raiders defeated the Parramatta Eels 68–0. This was the record for biggest winning margin where the losing team was kept scoreless for 31 years, until the North Queensland Cowboys defeated the Wests Tigers 74–0 in 2023.
In August, Parramatta announced that Ron Hilditch would replace coach Mick Cronin at the end of the season, while Bob McCarthy would replace Frank Curry who stood down as Souths coach.
Following the 22 regular season rounds played from March through August, Canterbury won the minor premiership, followed by St. George, Canberra, Manly and Brisbane who would go on to battle it out in the finals series.
Awards Rothmans Medal — Ricky Stuart (Canberra Raiders) Dally M Medal — Ricky Stuart (Canberra Raiders) Rugby League Week Player of the Year — Steve Walters
Representative matches In April, City defeated Country 7–0 in the annual City vs Country Origin match.
In the annual State of Origin series between NSW and Queensland, NSW won the series 2–1.
Following the Origin series, an Australian team played three test matches against New Zealand. Australia won the series 2–0 after the first test in Auckland was drawn 14-all. Teams The lineup of teams remained unchanged from the previous season, with 16 clubs contesting the premiership, including five Sydney-based foundation teams, another six from Sydney, two from greater New South Wales, two from Queensland, and one from the Australian Capital Territory.
BalmainTigers 86th seasonGround: Leichhardt Oval Coach: Alan JonesCaptain: Ben EliasBrisbaneBroncos 6th seasonGround: ANZ Stadium Coach: Wayne BennettCaptain: Allan Langer CanberraRaiders 12th seasonGround: Bruce Stadium Coach: Tim SheensCaptain: Mal MeningaCanterbury-BankstownBulldogs 59th seasonGround: Belmore Oval Coach: Chris AndersonCaptain: Terry LambCronulla-SutherlandSharks 27th seasonGround: Endeavour Park Coach: Arthur BeetsonCaptain: Dan StainsEastern SuburbsRoosters 86th seasonGround: Sydney Football Stadium Coach: Mark MurrayCaptain: Craig SalvatoriGold CoastSeagulls 6th seasonGround: Seagulls Stadium Coach: Wally LewisCaptain: Peter Gill & Brent ToddIllawarraSteelers 12th seasonGround: Wollongong Stadium Coach: Graham MurrayCaptain: John CrossManly-WarringahSea Eagles 47th seasonGround: Brookvale Oval Coach: Bob FultonCaptain: Geoff TooveyNewcastleKnights 6th seasonGround: Marathon Stadium Coach: David WaiteCaptain: Michael HaganNorth SydneyBears 86th seasonGround: North Sydney Oval Coach: Peter LouisCaptain: Tony ReaParramattaEels 47th seasonGround: Parramatta Stadium Coach: Mick CroninCaptain: Brett KennyPenrithPanthers 27th seasonGround: Penrith Stadium Coach: Phil GouldCaptain: John CartwrightSouth SydneyRabbitohs 86th seasonGround: Sydney Football Stadium Coach: Frank CurryCaptain: Michael AndrewsSt. GeorgeDragons 73rd seasonGround: Kogarah Oval Coach: Brian SmithCaptain: Michael PotterWestern SuburbsMagpies 86th seasonGround: Campbelltown Stadium Coach: Warren RyanCaptain: Paul Langmack
Advertising For the second year running the NSWRL and its advertising agency Hertz Walpole used the 1992 re-recording of "The Best" by Tina Turner and Jimmy Barnes which had been released as "Simply the Best", the title by which the song was more popularly known in Australia.
No new Tina footage was available until she came to Australia at the season's end, so further shots were taken from the 1992 Tina and Jimmy black & white film clip that accompanied the song's release and used in amongst the usual previous season action and pre-season training images.
The League and Winfield enjoyed additional advertising exposure late in the season when Tina aligned an Australian leg of her 1993 tour with the NSWRL's final series. She performed on-stage at the Grand Final, presented the victor's trophy and performed the next week in a number of full-scale rock'n'roll shows with her band at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.
Ladder
Finals With one round remaining the Canberra Raiders were outright first on the ladder and favoured to participate in their 4th grand final in just 5 years. This was not to be however as a horrific leg injury sidelined Ricky Stuart for the last round of competition and the finals series. The Raiders went on to lose to Canterbury in round 22 of the competition and then to Brisbane and St George in the finals, all of which they had beat easily during the preceding season. By the end of the season there were only two points separating 1st and 5th. Week one of the finals saw St George easily account for the Canberra Raiders whilst Brisbane brushed aside Manly on their march through to week two. Canberra went into this game with their third halves combination in as many weeks and were unable to overcome the eventual premiers, succumbing to Brisbane 30–12. St. George beat Minor Premiers' Canterbury in the semi-final then had a week off to prepare for a Grand Final rematch with Brisbane who advanced through after beating Canterbury in a close and spiteful Preliminary Final. HomeScoreAwayMatch informationDate and timeVenueRefereeCrowd Qualifying finals St. George Dragons31–10 Canberra Raiders4 September 1993Sydney Football StadiumBill Harrigan31,429 Manly Sea Eagles10–36 Brisbane Broncos5 September 1993Sydney Football StadiumGreg McCallum38,432 Semi-finals Canberra Raiders12–30 Brisbane Broncos11 September 1993Sydney Football StadiumBill Harrigan33,893 Canterbury Bulldogs12–27 St. George Dragons12 September 1993Sydney Football StadiumGreg McCallum41,384 Preliminary final Canterbury Bulldogs16–23 Brisbane Broncos19 September 1993Sydney Football StadiumGreg McCallum34,821 Grand final St. George Dragons6–14 Brisbane Broncos26 September 1993Sydney Football StadiumGreg McCallum42,329
Chart
Grand Final
For the second year running Brisbane and St George played out the decider. The Broncos had momentum coming into the Grand Final, with only one loss in their last six matches. Even though that loss was to St. George in the final regular season round, Brisbane remained underdogs. In sunny conditions, a ground record crowd for the Sydney Football Stadium of 42,239 was on hand for the match.
Teams The teams for the Grand Final were largely unchanged from their meeting in the 1992 Grand Final. Only one Broncos player (Peter Ryan), and four of the Dragons (Jason Stevens, Nathan Brown, Gorden Tallis and Phil Blake) had not played in the previous decider. It was also Glenn Lazarus' fifth consecutive Grand Final appearance, having appeared the previous year's for Brisbane and the three years' before that with the Canberra Raiders. It was also David Barnhill's fifth consecutive Grand Final appearance, having appeared the previous year for St. George and the three years' before that with the Canberra Raiders.
Entertainment In the pre-match performance, Tina Turner performed "The Best" on stage at the Sydney Football Stadium alongside her saxophonist, US session musician Timmy Cappello.
Theatre performer Anthony Warlow and then star of the Australian production of The Phantom of the Opera, sung the Australian National anthem.
First half
During the first minute of the game, St. George forward Jason Stevens suffered a badly broken thumb and would take no further part in the match. Dragons er Mark Coyne also left the field briefly due to injury, but would play on. Following a Tony Priddle error, the Broncos opened the scoring in the 21st minute after Kevin Walters threw a dummy 40 metres out and sliced through the St. George line then passed back inside to Chris Johns who dived over. Julian O'Neill converted the try to give Brisbane a 6–0 lead. About seven minutes later it was Kevin Walters again who set up Terry Matterson on his inside to cross for a soft try from close range. O'Neill missed his kick so Brisbane led 10–0 with seven minutes of the first half remaining. Just before halftime Andrew Gee gave away a penalty in the ruck and St. George decided to take the two points, meaning the score at the break was 10–2 in favour of the Broncos. Brisbane had 57% of the possession in the first half, making only four handling errors, while St. George had made eight handling errors and had made 22 more tackles than the Broncos.
Second half
St. George opened the scoring in the second half, again with Ian Herron taking a shot at goal following a penalty from Andrew Gee, bringing the deficit back to a converted try at 10–4. Brisbane withstood further raids from the Dragons and when another penalty was awarded to St. George in front of the posts they again took the two points, with Herron making it three from three so the score was 10–6 in favour of the Broncos with just under 20 minutes remaining. However, these would be the last points the Dragons would score with the Broncos getting in close to St. Georges line before passing the ball out to Willie Carne on the right wing to dive over in the corner for the game's third try in the 68th minute. O'Neill missed the sideline conversion attempt so the score was 14–6 with only 10 minutes of the match remaining. There were no more points before the final siren, with Brisbane's defence able to keep out St. George and force the Dragons into further errors.
After the match Tina Turner presented the trophy to Brisbane captain Allan Langer and joined in Brisbane's post-game victory song.
Despite being on the losing side, Dragons forward Brad Mackay was chosen by NSWRL General Manager John Quayle, Don Furner and two St. George legends, John Raper and Reg Gasnier to be awarded the Clive Churchill Medal as man-of-the-match, with Queensland premier Wayne Goss questioning the decision. By retaining their title Brisbane had also become the first team in history to win a premiership from fifth spot. The match also drew remarkably strong ratings nationwide.
Scoreboard
Other matches