1976 Brisbane Rugby League season

Brisbane Rugby League

Sport	Rugby league
Number of teams	8
Country	Australia
Premiers	Western Suburbs

The 1976 Brisbane Rugby League season was the 69th season of Brisbane Rugby League premiership. Eight rugby league teams from across Brisbane competed for the premiership, which culminated in a grand final match between the Western Suburbs and Eastern Suburbs clubs.

Season summary

Teams played each other three times, with 21 rounds of competition played. It resulted in a top five of Eastern Suburbs, Western Suburbs, Past Brothers, Redcliffe and Wynnum-Manly. However, Wynnum-Manly and Southern Suburbs finished the season equal on points, with Magpies defeating Seagulls in a mid-week play-off.

The 1976 season's Rothmans Medallist was Northern Suburbs forward Darryl Brohman.^[1] Brohman would later sign for Sydney club Penrith and feature for Canterbury in its 1984 NSWRL grand final win.

Teams

Club	Home ground	Coach	Captain
Eastern Suburbs	Langlands Park	Des Morris	Des Morris
Fortitude Valley	Neumann Oval
Northern Suburbs	Bishop Park
Past Brothers	Corbett Park
Redcliffe	Redcliffe Showgrounds	Barry Muir	Ian Pearce
Southern Suburbs	Davies Park		Greg Veivers
Western Suburbs	Purtell Park	Ron Raper
Wynnum-Manly	Kougari Oval

Ladder

	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts
1	Eastern Suburbs	21	15	0	6	482	313	+169	30
2	Western Suburbs	21	15	0	6	420	280	+140	30
3	Past Brothers	21	13	0	8	395	260	+135	26
4	Redcliffe	21	11	0	10	367	378	-11	22
5	Wynnum-Manly	21	8	0	13	303	335	-32	16
6	Southern Suburbs	21	8	0	13	329	428	-99	16
7	Fortitude Valley	21	8	0	13	276	387	-111	16
8	Northern Suburbs	21	6	0	15	291	482	-191	12

Finals

Home	Score	Away	Match Information
			Date and Time	Venue	Referee	Crowd
Playoffs
Southern Suburbs	19-12	Fortitude Valley	24 August 1976	Lang Park
Wynnum-Manly	12-17	Southern Suburbs	26 August 1976	Lang Park
Qualifying Finals
Redcliffe	6-14	Southern Suburbs	28 August 1976	Lang Park	Ian Smith	8,000
Western Suburbs	10–19	Past Brothers	29 August 1976	Lang Park	Bernie Pramberg
Semi-finals
Western Suburbs	11-5	Southern Suburbs	4 September 1976	Lang Park	Ian Smith
Eastern Suburbs	13-3	Past Brothers	5 September 1976	Lang Park	Eddie Ward
Preliminary Final
Past Brothers	10-18	Western Suburbs	12 September 1976	Lang Park	Bernie Pramberg
Grand Final
Eastern Suburbs	1-16	Western Suburbs	19 September 1976	Lang Park	Bernie Pramberg	37,000

Grand Final

Western Suburbs made it two premierships in succession, after defeating favourites Eastern Suburbs in an anticlimactic decider.

Easts' solitary point was a field goal by second-rower John Payne, who temporarily gave Tigers the lead in the first-half.

Man of the match Gary Prickett scored the opening try for Wests, with lock John Ribot scoring the second just before half-time. Wests lead 12–1 at half-time and effectively repelled all Easts' efforts in the second-half.

The match was virtually without incident. The most blatant was a high tackle by John Payne on Wests' prop, Max Williamson. Williamson had to be helped from the field, with Payne receiving a long lecture from referee Bernie Pramberg.

Western Suburbs 16 (Tries: Gary Prickett, John Ribot. Goals: 5)

Eastern Suburbs 1 (Field goal: John Payne)^[2][3]

References