Brisbane City (rugby union)

Brisbane City is an Australian rugby union football team based in Brisbane that competes in the National Rugby Championship (NRC). The team is one of two Queensland sides in the competition, the other being Queensland Country.[1] Brisbane City is organised and managed by the Queensland Rugby Union (QRU), with the coaching and training programs utilised by the Queensland Reds being extended to players joining the team from the Reds and Queensland Premier Rugby teams.[1][2][3]

Brisbane City
Founded2014
LocationBrisbane, Australia                                     
Ground(s)(Capacity: 3,000) GPS Rugby Club
(Capacity: 6,000) Bond University
(Capacity: 18,000) Ballymore
(Capacity: 3,000) Easts Rugby Club
Coach(es)Jim McKay
Captain(s)Fraser McReight
League(s)National Rugby Championship
20194th
1st kit
2nd kit
Official website
www.redsrugby.com.au/NRC/BrisbaneCity.aspx
Quade Cooper makes a tackle for Brisbane City in NRC 2014.

The Brisbane City team in the NRC takes its identity from the metropolitan rugby team that has represented Brisbane for more than a century.[4] The representative team's colours and a similar logo were inherited for the NRC. The Brisbane City uniform is yellow and blue, with a crest of the City Hall logo within Queensland Rugby's traditional 'Q' on the jersey's chest.[1]

The NRC was launched in 2014, reinstating the national competition after the Australian Rugby Championship (ARC) was discontinued following the first season in 2007.[5] The Brisbane City NRC team utilises existing QRU staffing roles and infrastructure, with the team's home ground and training base located at QRU's headquarters at Ballymore.[1][2][3]

History

Brisbane's earliest recorded intercity football match under Rugby Union rules took place on 19 August 1878 when Brisbane FC played Ipswich FC.[6][7] The teams played again three weeks later under Victorian Rules.[8] This was five years before the foundation of the Northern Rugby Union (the NRU, which was later to become the QRU).[4] In the early years of rugby in Queensland, teams from country areas such as Toowoomba, Rockhampton and Charters Towers were Brisbane's main on-field rivals.[4]

Representative team

Brisbane representative sides have been selected from the premier clubs in the city's competition for more than a hundred years to play teams from other areas of Queensland as well as international and provincial touring sides.[4] A Brisbane Metropolitan side played the visiting British Isles team in 1904, and later Brisbane representative teams played the All Blacks in 1951 and Fiji in 1954.[4]

The first City-Country rugby match between Brisbane and Queensland Country (selected from the rest of Queensland) was held at the inaugural Country Week carnival hosted by the QRU in 1902.[9] Country Week carnivals became sporadic with the rise of rugby league after 1909, and the start of the First World War brought rugby union to a halt in Queensland in 1914. The QRU was revived in 1928–29, but rugby languished in country regions of the state for many years.[9]

City-Country matches were resumed in 1965.[10] From 1968 until 1982, annual Country Carnival competitions were held from which the Country team was selected to play Brisbane and other representative sides. The Country Carnival was discontinued in favour of State Championships in 1983,[11] and the format of competition has varied over time, but City-Country matches between representative teams from Brisbane and Queensland Country have remained regular fixtures since.

Ballymore Tornadoes (ARC team)
Tornadoes logo and jersey in ARC 2007.

In 2006, after setting up a consultative process culminating in a working session of some 70 delegates from around the country, the Australian Rugby Union announced that a new, eight-team national competition would commence in 2007 to compete for the Australian Rugby Championship (ARC).[12]

The Ballymore Tornadoes was the Brisbane-based team in the ARC, and the team played its home matches at Ballymore Stadium. The team's colours were maroon, blue and silver.[13] The Ballymore Tornadoes side was one of two Queensland teams supported by the QRU in the competition, alongside the East Coast Aces.[14]

Queensland's two teams in the ARC were aligned with existing clubs and regions. The Tornadoes were aligned with six Queensland Premier Rugby clubs north of the Brisbane River – Brothers, GPS, Norths/QUT, Sunshine Coast, University and Wests.[15] Chris Roche, a former Wallaby who played 17 Tests as well as 49 matches for the Reds during the 1980s, was the head coach of the Tornadoes. Paul Healy was the assistant coach.[16][17]

The Australian Rugby Championship was terminated at the end of 2007 after only one season of competition, with the Australian Rugby Union citing higher costs than budgeted and further projected financial losses.[18] The Tornadoes team was disbanded with the end of the ARC competition.

National Rugby Championship
Lachlan Maranta (in white) for City in 2018.

In December 2013, the ARU announced that the national competition was to be relaunched, with the National Rugby Championship (NRC) commencing in 2014.[19] Expressions of interest were open to any interested parties, with the accepted bids finalised in early 2014.[20] There was initial interest from Brisbane clubs in forming NRC teams themselves,[3] but to eliminate the risks to sub-unions and clubs the Queensland Rugby Union decided to organise and manage two teams centrally for the first year of the competition.[2] On 24 March 2014, it was announced that the Brisbane City and Queensland Country teams would play in the NRC competition.[3][21]

Brisbane City secured McInnes Wilson Lawyers as principal sponsor for the 2014 NRC season.[22]

Stadium

The home ground for the Brisbane City team is Ballymore.[1] The stadium was built in 1966 and is the traditional home of Queensland Rugby.[1] The Queensland Reds played their home matches in the Super Rugby competition at Ballymore until the end of the 2005 season, before they moved to the larger Suncorp Stadium for 2006. Ballymore has a capacity of around 24,000.[23] Test matches have also been played at Ballymore, including Bledisloe Cup matches,[24][25] and a semi-final of the 1987 Rugby World Cup.[26]

Brisbane City also played a home game at Suncorp Stadium in 2014, as the curtain raiser to the Bledisloe Cup match.

Current squad
Brisbane City – NRC 2019 [upper-alpha 1]
Prop
Hooker
Lock
Backrow
Scrum-half
Fly-half
Centre
Wing
Fullback

Notes:
  1. Initial squad was named in late August.[27]
  2. Watson and Anderson weren't in the original squad but were named in the team for Round 3.[28]
Bold denotes player is internationally capped. (c) Denotes team captain. 1 denotes marquee player.

Fraser McReight in 2018.

Scrum-half Moses Sorovi.

Records

Honours

Season standings

National Rugby Championship

Year Pos Pld W D L F A +/- BP Pts   Play-offs
2018 5th 7403205245−40218   Did not compete
2017 6th 8413281291–10220   Did not compete
2016 7th 7205216306−9019   Did not compete
2015 1st 8800400174+226638   Grand final win over Canberra Vikings by 21–10
2014 3rd 8602295257+38226   Grand final win over Perth Spirit by 37–26

Australian Rugby Championship (Tornadoes)

Year Pos Pld W D L F A +/- BP Pts   Play-offs
2007 7th 8206180229-49311   Did not compete

Head coaches

Captains

Squads
  • Quade Cooper takes a conversion for Brisbane City
  • Brisbane City scrum down against North Harbour Rays
  • Brisbane City win a lineout against North Harbour Rays

See also

References
  1. "NRC frequently asked questions". Queensland Rugby. 2014. Archived from the original on 3 July 2014. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  2. QRU Annual Report 2013, p. 5.
  3. "NRC update part 1: Queensland, Perth, Melbourne and Canberra". The Roar. 8 July 2014. Archived from the original on 8 July 2014. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
  4. "Brisbane City History". Queensland Rugby. 1 August 2014. Archived from the original on 1 August 2014. Retrieved 1 August 2014.
  5. "Australia relaunches National Rugby Championship". rugbyweek.com. 24 March 2014. Archived from the original on 24 March 2014. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  6. "Football Match: Ipswich v. Brisbane". The Brisbane Courier. 19 August 1878. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  7. "Football". Queensland Times. 20 August 1878. p. 3. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  8. "Football". The Telegraph. Brisbane. 10 September 1878. Retrieved 1 January 2016.
  9. Purcell 2002, p. 2–4.
  10. Purcell 2002, p. 6–7.
  11. Purcell 2002, p. 12.
  12. "2006 Annual Report: Rugby services" (PDF). Australian Rugby Union. 31 May 2006. p. 47. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 May 2014. Retrieved 9 July 2014.
  13. "ARC Team names and logos announced". qru.com.au. 2 June 2006. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 21 February 2007.
  14. "Queensland Rugby begins planning for new competition". rugby.com.au. 14 February 2006. Archived from the original on 25 October 2008. Retrieved 20 February 2007.
  15. "Ballymore Tornadoes team overview". Queensland Rugby. 2007. Archived from the original on 10 March 2010. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  16. "Former Wallaby and ex-AB to coach new Qld national teams". worldcupweb.com. 23 February 2007. Archived from the original on 8 February 2012. Retrieved 23 February 2007.
  17. "Tornadoes announce fitness test lineup". qru.com.au. 2 April 2007. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 4 April 2007.
  18. "ARU pull plug on Australian Rugby Championship". ESPN Scrum. 18 December 2007. Archived from the original on 12 July 2014. Retrieved 12 July 2014.
  19. Orme, Steve (10 December 2013). "ARU unveils new national rugby championship for 2014". Sportal. Archived from the original on 15 July 2014. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  20. "ARU unveils new domestic competition, a third tier of rugby". The Australian. News. 10 December 2013. Archived from the original on 8 March 2016. Retrieved 3 July 2014. Alt URL
  21. "Australian Rugby Union says National Rugby Championship to start in August". ABC. 24 March 2014. Retrieved 9 May 2014.
  22. Slack, Andrew (27 September 2014). "Former Wallaby Andrew Slack says National Rugby Championship a winner in a host of areas". The Courier Mail. News. Archived from the original on 2 October 2014. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  23. "Ballymore Stadium". Austadiums.com. Archived from the original on 2 February 2007. Retrieved 21 February 2007.
  24. "Australia v New Zealand at Brisbane". ESPN Scrum. 19 July 1992. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  25. "Australia v New Zealand at Brisbane". ESPN Scrum. 16 July 1988. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  26. "IRB Rugby World Cup - Brisbane". ESPN Scrum. 14 June 1987. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
  27. "Brisbane City announce squad for 2019 National Rugby Championship". Queensland Rugby Union. 26 August 2019.
  28. "NRC Team Hub: All the teams, kick-off times and broadcast info for round three". Rugby.com.au. 12 September 2019.
  29. "Brisbane City team staff announced for 2019 National Rugby Championship". Reds Rugby. 2 August 2019. Archived from the original on 2 August 2019.
  30. Tucker, Jim (8 August 2016). "Wallaby World Cup winner Toutai Kefu joins Queensland Country coaching ranks". Courier-Mail. Archived from the original on 9 August 2016. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  31. "NRC lifeline unlikely for Cooper, Hunt". Rugby.com.au. 4 July 2018. Archived from the original on 4 July 2018. Retrieved 4 July 2018.
  32. "Sam Talakai to captain Mcinnes Wilson Lawyers Brisbane City in 2016 Buildcorp National Rugby Championship". Reds Rugby. 15 August 2016. Archived from the original on 15 August 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2016.
  33. "Liam Gill to captain of McInnes Wilson Lawyers Brisbane City in 2015 Buildcorp National Rugby Championship". Reds Rugby. 7 August 2015. Archived from the original on 7 August 2015. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
  34. "Curtis Browning to captain Brisbane City in inaugural Buildcorp National Rugby Championship". Queensland Rugby. 1 August 2014. Archived from the original on 1 August 2014. Retrieved 1 August 2014.
  35. Qantas Wallabies player alignments unveiled for 2014 Buildcorp National Rugby Championship

Sources
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