Rugby League Football
Rugby league football, usually called football, footy or just league has a place with some Sydneysiders, as a sporting and a tradition within the city. This stems back from the earlier colonial days of the city where the city and its cultural were largely dictated by wealthy Englishmen whom traditionally played and were supporters of the Rugby code of football, which was largely advertised and passed on to the people of Sydney, including the working class who in back in England largely played soccer. In the early 1900s Rugby footballers had the opportunity to become professional and earn a living from their sport, but there was wide spread disagreement as to whether or not this should happen, the working class strongly believed it was a good idea and they should become professional, whilst the middle class were more hesitant to do so, this resulted in a split similar to what had occurred in England, and the working class formed their own competition, the Rugby League, which followed the same rules as the equivalent breakaway competition in England. The game quickly grew a working class following, and has been a Sydney tradition ever since.
The headquarters of the Australian Rugby League and National Rugby League (NRL) are in Sydney, which is home to 9 of the 16 National Rugby League (NRL) football clubs (Sydney Roosters, South Sydney Rabbitohs, Parramatta Eels, Cronulla Sharks, Wests Tigers, Penrith Panthers, Bulldogs and Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles), as well as being the northern home of the St George Illawarra Dragons, which is half-based in Wollongong. A tenth team, the Newcastle Knights are located in Newcastle.
The premier state-level league is the New South Wales Cup, involving reserve teams from NSW and Canberra based NRL clubs as well as the first teams from other clubs. Country football is overseen by the New South Wales Country Rugby League. Annual matches between Country Origin and City Origin teams are held.
The annual State of Origin series between the New South Wales Blues and the Queensland Maroons is a popular sporting event in NSW. Sydney has hosted many State of Origin matches since the series began in 1980. The three game series are held in Sydney and Brisbane with the first and third games in one city and the second in the other. These rotate every year, so if two games are played in Sydney one year, then those games are played in Brisbane the next.
Read more about this topic: Sport In New South Wales
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