League of Legends: 100 Years of Rugby League in Australia
Relive the guts, glory and the dazzling clashes of the past 100 years of rugby league in the Powerhouse Museum's latest exhibition.
By Sarah Norris
We all have a different idea of what heaven will be like, but try telling a rugby league tragic that we won’t
all be wearing Laurie Nichols’ signature singlets and they’ll think you’re dreaming.
Die-hard fans like Balmain’s biggest, Nichols (the man who shadowboxed on the sideline at matches for decades in his distinctive body-sock), as well as legends like Clive Churchill, Arthur Beetson and Tommy Raudonikis, are all celebrated as playing significant roles in the working class game in a new exhibition, League of Legends: 100 Years of Rugby League in Australia.
Organised to coincide with rugby league’s centenary year, this travelling exhibition from the National Museum of Australia digs deep into the early history of the game (born in 1908 as a breakaway competition in defiance of the NSW Rugby Union) as well as its recent developments, drawing together photos, jerseys, Frank Hyde’s folding card table, posters, programs, mascot costumes and trophies.
“For my money, the trophies are a highlight,” says exhibition curator Guy Hansen. “The range and variety of trophies that exist in the rugby league world are immense and many of them are imprinted on our collective popular memory. No other more so than the Winfield Cup of the 1980s with a mud-soaked Norm Provan and Arthur Summons – it’s a cup that everyone remembers who watched football in that period.”
Looking back over the exhibition’s photographs, on-field fashion – from the big bushy moustaches of the 70s to the heavy jerseys and high-top boots that players ran around in – has certainly changed for the better.
More significantly, so has attitudes towards advertising. “That Winfield Cup trophy – you would never have a cigarette brand plastered in such large letters across anything now,” says Hansen. “Alcohol sponsorship too. KB was a major sponsor for many years; people in the 80s will remember the ‘How do you feel’ ads which were very famous.”
League of Legends: 100 Years of Rugby League in Australia opens Fri 5 Sep at the Powerhouse Museum. See listings for more details.