1944 NSWRFL season
rugby league competition
The 1944 NSWRFL season was the thirty-seventh season of the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership, Sydney's top-level rugby league competition, and Australia's first. Eight teams from across the city contested the premiership during the season which culminated in Balmain's victory over Newtown in the grand final.
Teams
Balmain, formed on January 23, 1908, at Balmain Town Hall
Canterbury-Bankstown
Eastern Suburbs, formed on January 24, 1908, at Paddington Town Hall
Newtown, formed on January 14, 1908
North Sydney, formed on February 7, 1908
South Sydney, formed on January 17, 1908, at Redfern Town Hall
St. George, formed on November 8, 1920, at Kogarah School of Arts
Western Suburbs, formed on February 4, 1908
Ladder
Finals
Newtown looked set for back-to-back titles after finishing as minor premiers. Both Newtown and Balmain won their respective semi-finals with the Bluebags blitzing St George by 55 points to 7, which was to remain the Dragons' largest losing margin until 1994 and the largest margin in a finals match until 2019. However injuries and war duties then ravaged the side including the key losses of Len Smith and Herb Narvo who had starred for them all season. Balmain thus overcame Newtown 19–16 in the final, enabling Newtown a “right of challenge”.
Grand Final
Newtown exercised their “right of challenge” as minor premiers and called for a Grand Final. In a low-scoring affair Balmain's representative centre Joe Jorgenson kicked two late penalty goals to give the Tigers a 12–8 win and their eighth title.
Balmain 12 (Tries: Devery, K Parkinson.
“1944 NSWRFL season” enters the record as rugby league competition. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what NSWRFL, season and rugby can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1944 NSWRFL season” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, NSWRFL, season and rugby provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4565399. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1908, 1920 and 1994.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1944 NSWRFL season”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1944 NSWRFL season primary sources, 1944 NSWRFL season archive and NSWRFL research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1944 NSWRFL season”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1944 NSWRFL season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.