The NSW Rugby League in March proposed to extend Group 9 to the Victorian border but remove some Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area Towns, with some 28 teams: Cootamundra, Jugiong, Gundagai, Tumut, Young, Boorowa, Koorawatha, Grenfell, Temora, Barmedman, Wyalong, Ungarie, Lake Cargelligo, Wagga, Junee, The Rock, Rand, Galong, Culcairn, Holbrook, Albury, Urana, Oakland, Henty, Coolamon, Ariah Park, Barellan and Griffith. As most of the above towns south and west of Wagga only played Australian Rules football it seemed to be an aspirational grouping, rather than a reflection of reality.

The importance of the railways as the transportation backbone was highlighted by the Group’s response to the above.  They suggested that Group 9 include Harden and “all the towns on the main and branch lines to Albury; all towns on the Temora-Griffith line; also the towns on the Stockinbingal-Forbes line to the border of the Western District (Group 11).  Group 9 quietly settled to be composed of ten core towns Tumut, Gundagai, Harden-Murrumburrah, Cootamundra, Young, Junee, Wagga, Temora, Barmedman, West Wyalong and with Irrigation Area teams drifting in and out.

Paid coaches were the issue of 1926.  In 1925 all the better Group 9 teams had one.  The method applied by Gundagai to appoint a coach was interesting. Although the football club did not have enough funds for a paid coach, they decided to seek to appoint one anyway. They felt that once the appointment was made the public, being largely the local businesses, would come to the party and pay the bills.  They did.

When Temora, chastened by their previous years experience of hiring a costly coach, sought successfully to ban them. Coota and Young threatened to abandon the Group in response.  Relations between Young and Temora became particularly caustic. However the matter was easily sidestepped by the big clubs. Coaches Ted Taplin (Young), Phil Regan (Coota) and ‘Chips’ Phillips (Gundagai) simply ceased being referred to as coaches – although they continued to receive pay.  Just call me ‘Skipper‘.  Ironically the following year Temora enticed Eric Weissel from Coota for record reward to coach and captain.

Group 9 was now getting thoroughly organised, with separate committees covering judicial, financial, fixture and selection matters.

The big crowds in the southwest were noted in Sydney, and resulted in more and better City sides visiting.  The first signs of friction between the NSW Rugby League (increasingly referred to as the Sydney RFL) and Group 9 emerged – over the practice of visiting teams taking 50% of the gate in friendlies. Even so Young couldn’t resist hosting a strong Balmain team in August on those terms and Grenfell welcomed (and trounced) the season’s premiers South Sydney.

Fred Cahill, later a member of the NSW parliament

There was considerable conflict between Group 9 secretary Fred Cahill (who was also a journalist for the Young Witness) and the Cootamundra club over the use of Sydney referees.  Young wanted to pay imported coaches and save on referees by appointing neutral locals.  Other clubs demanded that paid coaches be eliminated but were willing to pay for Sydney referees.  Young also called for the challengers to receive a share of the Maher Cup (and other cup) gates. When Cootamundra won the Royal Cup (sponsored by Young’s Royal Hotel) which did provide for a 25% visitor’s share – they returned it, considering that this carve-up made it uneconomic to defend.  After a raucous end of season meeting at Cootamundra in September Cahill collapsed and resigned.

In 1924 when Cootamundra put the Maher Cup back into player they framed new rules to suit themselves.  Soon the gamesmanship and greed synonymous with this Cup was beginning to become apparent. Cootamundra started to enforce its residency rule whereby players must reside within 10 miles of the team town’s post office.  Talented Gundagai stalwart Gerry Crowe from Gobarralong lived a mile or two too far from the Murrumbidgee town and was banned from the Cup.  Coota didn’t make any new friends either when Grenfell put in a challenge and were told they had to withdraw their coach from the team – English international representative Ben Gronow – even though Cootamundra’s own skipper Phil Regan was clearly nothing other than a kept coach under another name.

The year ended with bitterness between Cootamundra and Temora, over referees, Temora and Junee, over playing on Show Day, Young and Cootamundra on multiple fronts, and generally ill-feeling against Cootamundra for its dominance of the Maher Cup competition both on and off the field.

Football was being developed into a semi-professional game with top ranked representative players coming to the bush to take up paid captain-coaching roles at: Barmedman – Clarrie Horder; Cootamundra – Phil Reagan (now in his fourth year), Grenfell – Frank Burge; Gundagai – Alex Johnston; Temora – Jack Dawson, Tumut – ‘Bluey’ Watkins, West Wyalong – Dick Vest, and at Young – Joe Mansted.

This year the Southern Districts team for Country Week was composed only of Group 9 players and most were from Cootamundra.  The team being: fullback; Bill Lesberg (Coota); three-quarters,  Tom Ryan (Coota),  J. Mitton (Wagga), Sid Hall (Young), Jack Watson (Coota), Eric Weissel (Coota), Phil Regan (Coota), Charlie Schwartzel (Coota), Clem Robinson (Coota), Dadie Quinlan (Coota), Ray Sheedy (Coota), ‘Curly’ McWhinney (Young) and Jack Wunsch (Wagga). They lost to Far North Coast 20-15.  [One report has Schofield scoring a try]. In the second match they trounced Northern 26-8 with Schofield replacing Watson, and Cootamundra’s Curtis Pellow replacing  Schwartzel. Weissel, Wunsch, Lesberg and Sid Hall were selected in the Combined Country team to play the New Zealand tourists.

Cootamundra organised what was to be the first Group 9 annual conference. The primary purpose was to put in place a ‘Board of Control’ to formally develop and manage rugby league in the area.   On 5 August delegates came representing Barmedman, Cootamundra, Griffith, Gundagai, Harden, Junee, Leeton, Marengo, Monteagle, Temora, Tumut, Wagga, West Wyalong, Yenda and Young.

The first business was whether Cootamundra would be the headquarters for Group 9.  The elected secretary, Fred Cahill of Young, considered that his town was larger and thus should be the capital. He lost. Cahill suggested that a regular Group 9 competition be established from 1926 – a battle he would spend many years doggedly pursuing. Not for the last time discussion was deferred on the matter.  Tom O’Farrell of Wagga was elected president, a constitution drawn up, affiliation fees fixed, auditors appointed and New Zealand invited to play on 19 August at Fisher Park.

Brilliantly led by Eric Weissel the Group 9 team defeated the ‘All Blacks’ 26-25 in front of about 3,000.  After paying the Kiwis their guarantee a decent £62 profit resulted.   The players were: fullback, G. Robinson (Cootamundra); three-quarters, ‘Bluey’ Freestone (Gundagai), Jack Brown (Young), Peters (Griffith), Jack McCarthy (Wagga); halves, Eric Weissel (Cootamundra) and Jim Cornett (Leeton); forwards, Gerry Crowe (Gundagai), Gerry Quirk (Tumut), R. Mulvihill (Tumut), Jack Wunsch (Wagga), Bill Brogan (West Wyalong) and Ted Curran (Temora).

The Group 9 meeting sought to organise matches for 1926 so that each ‘first grade centre’ would play at least eight games away each year – four on Wednesday and four on Sunday. This plan emerged in 1926 as being as easy as herding cats and was abandoned.

Under the rules written up by Ted Maher a team holding the Cup two years in succession could keep it. Cootamundra’s stunning side of 1923 achieved this. However the Cup was already a major talk of towns far and wide and too valuable to be placed in the trophy cabinet for posterity.  So Cootamundra made up new rules and put the Cup back into play – for what would end up being another 48 years.

The Cootamundra team of 26 Sep 1923 which won the Maher Cup outright. In 1924 they put the money spinner back into play. Back: Left-Right; M.J. Ryan (Selector), Mick Tuncheon, P. J. Kiley (Hon Sec), Bill Lesberg, Bob Condon, Charlie. Schwartzel, D.J. Rand (President), Bernie Kinnane, W. Farrer (vice President), Delaney, Referee (Sydney) –  2nd Row: Fred Hayward, Jack Watson, Phil Regan (Captain & Coach), Ray Sheedy, L.T. ‘Dadie’ Quinlan – Front Row: C.H. Inson (Hon Treasurer), Brian O’Connor, Curtis ‘Dick’ Pellow, Eric Weissel, Tom ‘Dipper’ McDevitt – Absent players: Wal Franklin, Phil Freestone, Tom Ryan, J. Large, J. Kelley, P. Mills, Charlie Schofield. (These would have been players who didn’t play in the particular match but contributed in other games)

This year the Southern Districts team was selected in a match which christened Fisher Park between teams billed as  ‘Cootamundra’ and ‘Goulburn’. While the Goulburn team was a composite from the various clubs in Group 8, the Coota team was very much their victorious Maher Cup team plus fullback Bob Boyd from Stockinbingal and Gerry Crowe from Gobarralong near Gundagai. Weissel was brilliant and Coota won 16-3. Seven Coota players, plus Crowe and Boyd were selected to go to Sydney.  In Country Week they went on to beat North Coast 14-12 and Northern Division 29-8. According to the Gundagai Independent Eric Weissel had his jaw broken, although only six days later he played in the Group’s biggest game to date.

This big event was the visit to Cootamundra by the English team on 27 May, attracting between 5000 and 6000 spectators.  England won 31-4 and went on to defeat Australia in the first test 22-3 at the Sydney Cricket Ground four weeks later.

The Maher Cup had by 1924 emerged as the premier local league fixture.  In a way it was just another challenge cup of the type that businessmen, particularly publicans and cafe owners, sponsored for their towns and villages throughout the area. But the Maher Cup quickly garnered intense interest from Tumut to Wyalong and all places in between.

The Cootamundra Herald above listed the gates from the Coota team’s home games for the season.  Most of these matches involved the Maher Cup, but there were also Farrar Cup matches with West Wyalong (with gate takings larger than all but one of the Maher Cup matches) and Gundagai, while friendlies were hosted with Balmain, Everleigh Loco and Berrima.

West Wyalong’s year was more typical of Group 9 teams in that they played for a great variety of challenge cups.  The Farrar Cup, originally put up by a West Wyalong publican, was lost twice to Cootamundra, they withstood three challenges for Leeton’s Tulk Cup which they had captured, played two matches in the Southwest District Championship Shield, three Crowley Cup matches with Temora, four Burge Cup matches with Barmedman, defeated Forbes in two friendlies and had their first game ever against Griffith.

Such was Group 9 football in the days before a regular weekly league ladder competition.

As Harden-Murrumburrah was determined by the NSW Rugby League to be the headquarters of Group 9 in April 1923 the Harden secretary wrote to all clubs in the area to invite them to a meeting.  The main purpose of the meeting was to organise selection trials so that this year a properly representative team could contribute to the Southern Districts side for Country Week.  A four hour plus foundation meeting was thus held at the Grand Hotel, Harden on Thursday 26 April finishing at 12.20am.  It was agreed to divide the group geographically into three sections for the trials:
Section 1 – Harden, Murrumburrah, Binalong, Young, Wambanumba, Monteagle and Bendick Murrell.
Section 2 – Cootamundra, Junee, Wagga, Gundagai, Tumut and Adelong.
Section 3 – West Wyalong, Barmedman, Griffith. Temora, Leeton, Ariah Park and Mildil.

This all got off to a rather inauspicious start, when, after three of the club delegates from villages close to Harden and Young had left the meeting to catch their branch line train the remaining delegates narrowly passed a resolution to move the headquarters to Cootamundra. While this may have made good geographical sense, the motion would have been lost if all the delegates had been able to remain.  Thus the bad feelings that often erupted between Young and Cootamundra were established on day one.

After the selection trials the following team was chosen to represent Group 9 against Group 8 at Goulburn : Fullback: Bill Lesberg (Cootamundra); three-quarters; Eric Weissel (Cootamundra), W. Collier (Barmedman), Pickard and C. McVeigh (Young); halves, Charlie Carthew (Junee), Tom Peck (Binalong), Jim Cornett (Leeton); forwards Dadie Quinlan (Cootamundra), Leo ‘Curly’ Joyce (Young), Bill Brogan (West Wyalong), Glen King (Barmedman), A. Miller (Harden), and Ollie Armour (Junee).

While Group 9 wanted the game played on a Wednesday, Goulburn insisted that only Saturday was suitable.  For whatever reason the team that took the field had six changes from that originally selected and needed a local pickup to fill in for the brilliant kicker Lesberg who couldn’t make it at the last minute, thus: fullback; Bert Wilson (Goulburn); three-quarters, J. Horne and J. Green (Leeton), Eric Weissel (Cootamundra) and W. Collier (Barmedman); halves, Charlie Carthew (Junee) and Jim Cornett (Leeton); forwards, Dadie Quinlan (Cootamundra), Glen King (Barmedman), Ollie Armour (Junee), Bill Brogan (West Wyalong), George Bacon (Barmedman) and B. Berecry (Griffith). They lost 29-13 and only Weissel, Cornett, Quinlan and Brogan were selected to represent Southern Districts in Sydney.

This time Southern Districts defeated the North Coast, 19-7. Weissel and Brogan were then chosen to play for NSW Country against Newcastle.

Rugby League emerged in the Riverina in 1911, at West Wyalong. By 1921 it had replaced Union throughout the southwest. The NSW Rugby League, recognising the need to join up clubs and to organise this rapidly expanding sport, proposed prior to the 1922 season to divide the rural parts of the state into twelve groups. Group 9 was to include the teams Harden, Wagga, Cootamundra, Gundagai, Tumut, Temora, Barmedman, Wyalong, West Wyalong, Mildil, Ariah Park and Ardlethan. Continue reading →