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Daniel Nichols posted an article this week posing the question, “Why are we acting like Souths are the only NRL team in Sydney?” The answer is simple Daniel, it’s been that way ever since 1908 when they first formed.
Souths were the first officially formed rugby league team (one week earlier than the Balmain club).
For this they were already smug but levels escalated to monumental proportions the following year, the second of the NSWRL’s new competition.
That year, Souths committed the single lowest dog act the game of rugby league has ever seen, even to this day. Worse still, they were allowed to get away with it and they’ve been a contemptuous, arrogant lot ever since.
For those not familiar with the story, allow me to elaborate.
It’s September 1909 and South Sydney and Balmain are to play the grand final. However, in their infinite wisdom, the NSWRL decides to schedule the match to be played as a preliminary game to the Kangaroos versus Wallabies clash later in the day.
Souths and Balmain players and officials protest that the grand final should be a stand-alone match and should not be a curtain raiser for another game. Their complaints fall on deaf ears with the NSWRL hierarchy, who insist it will go ahead as planned. Balmain and South agree that aren’t going to play second fiddle to anyone, so on principle the two clubs decide they will boycott the game.
What happened next however, ensured that the 1909 grand final would go down in history. Not however, for being one of the closest or greatest of all time, but unfortunately for the vile act of treachery shown by South Sydney.
On that fateful day of the September 14, 1909 at the Agricultural Ground, South Sydney (seemingly unfamiliar with the meaning of the word “principle”) arrived for the 2pm start and kicked off to a vacant opposition half of the field. They scored a farcical try and were awarded the premiership by forfeit.
Not since Benedict Arnold had anybody witnessed such a wilful act of betrayal.
And so laid the foundations for South Sydney’s pomposity and imperiousness which, more than 100 years later, they still have. And this will likely never change as long as all and sundry keep coming up with statements like “the game is strong when Souths are winning”.
It has managed to do pretty bloody nicely for the past 43 years when they weren’t.
Footnote
An unidentified Balmain official of the day stated that South Sydney would be cursed for what they did in 1909, and would never beat Balmain in a grand final again.
To this day, even though Souths have won more premierships than any other club in history, in the four times that they’ve met Balmain in grand final since, the score is Balmain, four, Souths, zero. Ah karma, don’t you just love it?
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