National Rugby League season 2008

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2008 National Rugby League season
Image:National Rugby League 2007.png Logo of the National Rugby League
Teams	16
Minor Premiers	( title)

The 2008 National Rugby League (NRL) premiership will be the one hundred and first season of professional rugby league club competition in Australia, and the eleventh run by the National Rugby League. Sixteen teams are expected to contest for premiership. 2008 will also mark the launch of the Toyota Cup, an under 20 competition that will run parallel to the senior competition.

1 Centenary Celebrations
2 Participants
3 Return to a Daytime Grand Final
4 Sponsorship and Badging
5 Schedule
6 Ladder
7 Trivia
8 References

[edit] Centenary Celebrations

Rugby league was first introduced into Australia in 1907, with a meeting in Sydney on 8 August 1907 effectively forming a new breakaway league from the New South Wales Rugby Union. The new body was known as the New South Wales Rugby Football League, and became the first professional sporting code in Australia. In the following months, eight Sydney-based teams were formed and signed up to play in the New South Wales Rugby Football League's premiership, with another club joining a week into competition.

The New South Wales Rugby League continued to run the competition up until and including 1994 when it passed on responsibility to the Australian Rugby League, the national authority for rugby league in Australia. In 1997 a rival Super League competition run by News Limited was started and signed up several existing teams from the Australian Rugby League. After both bodies lost a lot of money that year, a truce was signed and a new competition was formed for the 1998 season, under the brand name "National Rugby League."

The National Rugby League, on behalf of the numerous rugby league bodies in Australia, has decided to hold a number of celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the sport in the country. This will include the opening match of the 2008 season being held between the remaining two "foundation clubs" from 1908, the Sydney Roosters and the South Sydney Rabbitohs. As well as this, a special rivalries round will take place which will coincide with the 100th anniversary of the first round of competition in the New South Wales Rugby League, whereby teams will face opponents that entered the competition in similar time frames.

Several events will also take place to celebrate the 100th anniversary of landmark moments in rugby league in Australia. These events began in August 2007 with a re-enactment of the meeting which led to the formation of the New South Wales Rugby League, essentially the beginning of rugby league in Australia. In January and February 2008, several of the foundation clubs, the Newtown Jets, South Sydney Rabbitohs, Balmain Tigers Sydney Roosters, North Sydney Bears and Western Suburbs Magpies, will host special functions at the places they were officially formed.

[edit] Participants

Of the sixteen teams that are participating in the regular season, ten teams are from New South Wales, three from Queensland and one from each of Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. Of the ten from New South Wales, nine are from Sydney's metropolitan area. Just two foundation clubs from New South Wales Rugby League season 1908 are playing in this competition: the Sydney Roosters (formerly known as Eastern Suburbs) and the South Sydney Rabbitohs. The Melbourne Storm will be the defending premiers in the centenary season after their 2007 triumph.

For the first time since the introduction of teams outside of New South Wales from 1988 onwards, a competition running below the First Grade will incorporate sides fielded by all 16 First Grade clubs. The National Youth Competition, known as the Toyota Cup for sponsorship purposes, will be a competition solely for Under-20s players.

[edit] Return to a Daytime Grand Final

On the back of increasing public pressure, the NRL decided to move the grand final for the Centenary season from 7:00pm kick-off to a 5:00pm AEDT kickoff. This will mean that fans of the game based in Queensland will view the game at 4:00pm AEST, and at 7:00pm in New Zealand.^[1] This will be the first season since 2000 that the NRL Grand Final will be played in daylight hours, largely due to the shift in Daylight Savings Time beginning in New South Wales, ACT and Victoria in 2008.

[edit] Sponsorship and Badging

For the eighth straight season the National Rugby League's naming rights sponsor will continue as Telstra, with the competition again to be known as the Telstra Premiership. In addition to the Telstra Premiership logo over the right upper chest, the Centenary of Rugby League in Australia logo will be displayed just above to commemorate the season.

Following their successful sponsorship of Friday Night Football in 2007, the Fosters Group, parent company of both Carlton Draught and Victoria Bitter has decided to change the specific brand sponsorship from the Carlton branding to now represent Victoria Bitter. Harvey Norman will continue to sponsor Rugby League State of Origin while AAMI has continued it's association with the annual City-Country Origin clash. It is not yet known if Bundaberg Rum will continue it's deal to sponsor both Monday Night Football and the annual League Test in April.

[edit] Schedule

Main article: 2008 NRL season results

The 2008 season is set to be one week longer than the 2007 competition, allowing an extra bye on top of the existing one allocated to each club. In addition, the scheduling of the earlier representative fixtures has been changed, including the removal of Monday Night Football on weekends prior to the City vs Country match and the ANZAC Test. The City vs Country fixture is also being pushed back to Friday night where it had been prior to the 2007 season. Many of these initiatives were announced mid-way through the 2007 season by the Chief Executive Officer of the National Rugby League, David Gallop, in an attempt to help reduce player fatigue after several complaints of player injuries caused by the short turnaround between some matches.

2008 will also see a change in how the draw is devised, with teams nominating their preferred home opponents in order of preference. The NRL will consult these requests when structuring the season's fixtures. This change is intended to maximise attendances by allowing local derbies and other high interest matches to be played twice a year. This is a departure from previous methods, which focused on trying to produce an equally difficult playing schedule for each club.[1]

The draw was released on October 19, 2007.

[edit] Ladder

National Rugby League season 2008 Ladder v • d • e
	Team	Pld	W	D	L	B	PF	PA	PD	Pts
1	Image:Brisbane colours.svg Brisbane	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2	Image:Canterbury colours.svg Bulldogs	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	Image:Canberra colours.svg Canberra	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
4	Image:Cronulla colours.svg Cronulla-Sutherland	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
5	Image:Gold Coast Titans colours.svg Gold Coast	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
6	Image:Manly colours.svg Manly-Warringah	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
7	Image:Melbourne colours.svg Melbourne	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
8	Image:Newcastle colours.svg Newcastle	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
9	Image:North Queensland colours.svg North Queensland	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
10	Image:Parramatta colours.svg Parramatta	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
11	Image:Penrith colours.svg Penrith	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
12	Image:St. George colours.svg St. George Illawarra	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
13	Image:South Sydney colours.svg South Sydney	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
14	Image:Eastern Suburbs colours.svg Sydney	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
15	Image:New Zealand colours.svg Warriors	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
16	Image:Wests Tigers colours.svg Wests Tigers	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

[edit] Trivia

The Grand Final will kick off in daylight hours for the first time since 2000, when Brisbane defeated the Sydney Roosters 14-6.
The most commonly used NRL venue, Telstra Stadium, became known as ANZ Stadium on 1 January 2008, following a new sponsorship agreement confirmed in December 2007. The Grand Final will be held here in October, and will be held at this venue until at least 2012.
Only two teams whom competed in the 1908 NSWRL competition remain as the League celebrates its Centenary in Australia. Those teams are South Sydney and the Sydney Roosters (formerly Eastern Suburbs).