Rugby League History

The "Grand Final"

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

The origin of "Grand Final" is lost in the past, but the tradition of using "Grand" to describe the most prestigous of sporting events can be traced back to Sydney in the 1860s.

When you think about it, why has rugby league in Australia historically had a Final, and then a "Grand Final"? Shouldn't there simply be one "Final"?

Victorian/Australian rules also uses these terms. Yet, nowhere else in the world seems to have "Grand Finals" (except rugby league in England, which adopted the Australian use).

The first use of "Grand Final" appears to lay somewhere in the years around World War One (though it may be as recent as the 1930s). Using "Grand" to describe a sporting event is far older.

Despite AFL historians claiming their code invented the idea of a "Grand Final" and play-offs, examination of Sydney and Melbourne newspapers from the 1890s and early 1900s (up to 1910) revealed no mention of "Grand Final" matches in either code. The AFL claim also ignores that play-off systems were in earlier use in sports in England and the USA, and in the 1890s in Sydney rugby union.

In the early 1900s in Sydney, in League and Union, semi-finals worked on a system that used a continuation of the regular season points table. As a result, a Final was only required when the top two clubs were within two points of each other after the semi-finals.

If they were within one point of each other, a win in the Final (and therefore another two points gained) would see one team claim the premiership.

However, in cases where the second team was two points behind, if they won the Final the two clubs would be on the same points tally. This would require a second Final to split the clubs.

When a "second Final" was required, it was not referred to as anything other than a "Final" in the newspapers, including advertisements. There was no mention of "Grand Final".

However, the use of the word "grand" was commonly used to describe what we might today called "great" or "spectacular" events. For example, "grand event to close the season" was used in advertising for a Final. Well back into the 1800s, "a grand football match may be anticipated" was a relatively common phrase in newspapers for major games. The word "grandstand" has similar origins - the great or large stand.

Maintaining the quaint term "Grand Final" (instead of say, "Super Bowl"), provides a direct linkage back the first major sporting events of our colonial past. In 1862, the first ever match of an England cricket team in Sydney was described as "The Grand Cricket Match".

"The Grand Cricket Match"
All England XI v. 22 of N.S.Wales
Sydney Domain
January 1862

"Grand Final" first came into common use under the "right-of-challenge" system adopted at various times by rugby league and Victorian rules in the first decades of the 1900s. A minor premier beaten in a semi-final or final could still win the premiership via a "Grand Final". In many seasons, a "Grand Final" did not eventuate.

In stage plays, the final act was also known as the "grand finale", where all the actors return to the stage, and there was great excitement and emotion. It is not difficult to equate that with the (absolute) final match of the season, where the minor premiers and the challenger are to perform for the prize.

The claims of the VFL/AFL that it has been playing Grand Finals annually since 1896 are fanciful. They have decided to treat all years that just had a Final (and 1924 that had none!), as being a "Grand Final" - hence they say the 2005 Grand Final was the 109th in-a-row. In reality, a Grand Final requires a Final to precede it for the term to be correctly used.

It was not until the play-off systems included a mandatory end-of-season decider that the "Grand Final" became a permanent fixture. In the VFL this was 1931, and in the NSWRL 1954.