Vendetta on Vulture
1 July 2023 - Brisbane play Redcliffe in round 18 of the NRLM season in the Saturday night game at The Gabba, Brisbane
At 2:30pm on 8 May 1909, Toombul and North Brisbane kicked off the very first Queensland Rugby Association match in front of about 800 people at the Brisbane Cricket Ground. On 14 September 1957, when Valleys, 18, defeated Brothers, 17, in the Brisbane Rugby League grand final of that year, the crowd at the Brisbane Cricket Ground was 16,151. In the intervening years, rugby league had taken over as the premier football code in the city.
As in Sydney, the All Golds tour of 1907-08 was the spark needed in Brisbane for the Northern Rugby Union rules to secede from and then supplant those of the Rugby Football Union. The tour of professional All Blacks commenced in 1907 in Sydney and visited Sri Lanka (New Zealand 33 d. Ceylon 6) on the way to England and Wales, before returning in 1908 to Australia, passing through Newcastle, Sydney and then Brisbane before mercifully terminating, 49 games later, in Sydney.
In the first half of the 20th century, major games in Brisbane were played at a mix of the Exhibition Grounds1 in Bowen Hills (as the 1908 All Golds games were), Davies Park in West End (which has had an array of historical uses) and the Cricket Ground in Woolloongabba.
Opening in 1896 between Stanley Street and Vulture Street, The Gabba is undoubtedly better known as a cricket venue, and less so for its bicycle, harness and dog races, but it also has a history of hosting high level rugby league fixtures. Rugby League Project recounts 11 Tests against Maori, New Zealand, France2 and England/Great Britain3, 36 Interstate series games and another 21 Tour matches of international teams playing Queensland4. 32 Brisbane club finals between 1909 and 1957 were played at The Gabba5.
Photos taken from Our Game by Steve Haddan (try your local library if you can’t otherwise find it)


Rugby league’s final permanently moved to Lang Park in Milton in 1958, having played matches there starting in 1955. The QRL, after merging with the BRL in 1953, secured a long lease on a site that would provide the financial base for the game moving forward. Nowadays Suncorp Stadium and rugby league in Brisbane and Queensland, especially the Broncos and the Maroons, are inseparable in the mind, but that is a relatively recent development in the history of this city, this state and this sport.
Then those corrupt parasites from FIFA invaded. The 2023 Women’s World Cup is being hosted by Australia and New Zealand. Despite the tournament not kicking off for another three weeks, the Brisbane Football Stadium has to be vacated for tournament preparation6. Conflict on Caxton was relocated from what should be the spiritual home of this contest to temporarily become the Vendetta on Vulture, and provide an unrivalled opportunity to embrace a somewhat forgotten part of rugby league history.
Vendetta on Vulture was the first game of rugby league football played at The Gabba since Queensland played Great Britain in 1968 (Great Britain 33 d. Queensland 187), which itself was the first game in nearly 11 years and, according to Rugby League Project, the last for 55 years. Naturally, the Cricket Ground has been expanded and refurbished and brought up to something approaching modern standards in the intervening time so it’s not quite the same experience as in the 60s - there's a lot less smoking, for one - and there seemed to be little recognition of the past.
A brisk winter’s night greeted a crowd of just over 30,000 and the predominantly maroon and gold crowd familiarised themselves with their new surrounds. It was clearly no patch on Lang Park but it was better than trips to QEII were in my memory. I say that despite being too far away to easily identify players or referee signals, not being able to clearly see the video screens from my seat, being stuck in numerous foot traffic jams on narrow footpaths, narrow concourses and narrow stairs in the stadium itself, and a pre-game pyrotechnics show that took place behind me, outside the stadium, which probably gives you a hint as to my feelings towards the old QEII. The roofed seating helped the acoustics of the crowd take on a few more decibels, the enclosed circular form didn’t conduct the mild chilling breeze Suncorp sometimes gets but, despite being a close game late in the contest, the circular form did conduct several attempts at Mexican waves. None of the tension of the first meeting was in evidence.
Because, unlike the first and last meeting of these teams, the Dolphins are not riding high on an undefeated start to the season. Redcliffe lost their last three by an average margin of 30 points. Brisbane are still deciding if they are a premiership threat, having rebuffed the Sharks, come home late against the Knights and tripped over their own shoelaces against the Titans. The injury toll of an already long 2023 is starting to mount on both sides. The vibes were undoubtedly more muted and took a backseat to the novelty of the setting, the mid-season dampening of State of Origin and the media circus around the suspended Reece Walsh.
Selwyn Cobbo looked to have regained some of his, if not form, then enthusiasm for his job that seemed to have gone missing since earlier in the season. Cobbo opened the scoring early by running around former Bronco Tesi Niu in what would become a recurring theme over the course of the night. Niu’s inclusion in the side, despite suffering a similar third degree burn from Deine Mariner in the previous weekend’s Cup game, and assignment to the Dolphins’ left opposite Cobbo was a truly puzzling decision. Cobbo’s inclusion in the side, after the previous week’s performance, was equally puzzling but then, that’s why I’m writing the newsletter and not coaching the side.
Ezra Mam found a gap between Valynce Te Whare and Jamayne Isaako - hips akimbo -and hit Herbie Farnworth with enough space that the Englishman was able to brush off Isaako and power over a solitary Te Whare. In another recurring theme, more timely assistance from Katoa or Nikorima probably prevents a try there.
Farnworth would score a second try, six minutes later, in almost identical fashion. Even with Isaako’s assistance, the Dolphins’ right side defence was not strong enough to contain Farnworth so close to the line. Farnworth generally played with his trademark selfishness in offence, albeit more productively than in recent matches, but did remember to throw a few terrible passes that Corey Oates had no chance of catching.
With a 10-0 lead and about 15 minutes left in the half, it seemed Brisbane were going to cruise home. The Broncos began to play with their food and were duly smacked in the face by the Dolphins. A slack defensive effort on a regulation play saw Kotoni Staggs turn to his outside to focus on Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow and gift Kodi Nikorima his first revenge try against his old club. The diminutive fullback had no trouble zipping past Tristan Sailor, a rare high point on a night the former struggled in the backfield.
The Broncos had 60% of the ball and carried a 14-6 lead into the break. Redcliffe returned for the second half with renewed verve. The Dolphins began to shift the ball early and wide and found the Broncos edge defenders half asleep. Te Whare got some measure of revenge on his opposite number, sliding past a flying Corey Oates, pushing off Piakura and ducking under Farnworth and Taupau to score.
Tyson Smoothy gave Billy Walters a rest and the Broncos’ attack ground to a halt. Smoothy was so slow out of dummy half, provided such poor service and was so error prone that the Dolphins had an eternity to read the offensive structures being thrown at them.
The bench forwards did themselves no particular favours, unable to lay down the platform that the starters hand out on the regular. When Jeremy Marshall-King scooped up the ball at dummy half near the goalposts, he feinted left, sold Piakura on a dummy to the right and burrowed under Kobe Hetherington and Xavier Willison’s arms in a try that was always coming and was always going to be scored. The subsequent conversion pushed the Dolphins into the lead, 16-14.
Brisbane were in no position to win the game - the forwards beaten, the backs hamstrung by their rake - until Selwyn Cobbo unleashed what can only be described as magic. You know what I’m talking about. Never in the history of the Brisbane Cricket Ground has something like that been seen on the pitch, whether it was beating five defenders single-handedly or having the good sense to hold his ball carrying arm up and avoid the double movement penalty. The Broncos re-asserted their control of the game and Cobbo provided the finishing touch, once again torching Niu and notching up the hattrick to seal the 24-16 victory.
For the Dolphins, the result was expected and they played their typical game: aiming up in Queensland, challenging a local rival and playing about one decent half of a football. At 7-9 and with a horrible points difference, the Dolphins path to a debut in the finals is an uphill one but, if they can build on this performance, get a few troops back and recapture the vitality of their first six weeks, there’s plenty of winnable games ahead of them on their schedule.
For the Broncos, they have now dispatched their erstwhile rivals twice, albeit in a mildly lazy and mildly frustrating, both hallmarks of this team, but somewhat more convincing fashion than the first attempt. Importantly, the players seem to have banished the poor quality of play that defined their match against the Titans and have regained the will to win that defined their match against the Knights. Defeating mediocre teams isn’t going to win them the premiership, and Walters won’t be able to get Cobbo matched up on Niu every week and should be considering recalling Paix from exile, but it’s sure better than losing.
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My hope is that, as The Gabba will be demolished and rebuilt for the Olympics in 2032, the Lions will lobby for the Main Arena at the Showgrounds to get an upgrade suitable for professional sport and we’ll get a third, more boutique sporting venue in inner Brisbane that can host Queensland Cup Heritage Magic Round. The Roar and Reds can piss off to Ballymore.
Australia beat France, 21-11, in 1951 in Brisbane, two weeks after Queensland’s draw with Les Chanticleers. Four days later, Brisbane Firsts only lost by a single point. Queensland won the Interstate Series that year. Somehow, Australia lost a three game series against France. You can draw your own conclusions.
Australia won seven and lost four, including a record crowd of 46,355 that saw Great Britain defeat Australia in the second game of the 1954 Ashes. As far as I can tell, that record for a rugby league crowd in Brisbane stood until 1993 when the Broncos moved to QEII Stadium in Nathan; their first match in round 3 against Parramatta bringing in 51,517. The current record for a rugby league game in Brisbane, which seems unlikely to ever be broken, is 58,912 set during the 1997 Super League final.
Queensland were a respectable 15-19-2 against New South Wales at The Gabba. Queensland also picked up wins against the USA, New Zealand, England, Great Britain and a draw with France, for a 8-15-1 record against international sides.
Finals in 1914, 1915, 1919 through 1931, 1942 and 1943 were played at the Exhibition Grounds or Davies Park. Some challenge finals were played at Davies Park the week after the final at The Gabba.
On 27 July, the NRL, in its infinite wisdom, has scheduled Broncos vs Titans in NRLW and Broncos vs Roosters in NRLM at The Gabba to clash with Australia vs Nigeria in the Women’s World Cup at Suncorp. I might just not leave the house that day. The only other Broncos game affected is 11 July against the Eels, squished in between two WWC knock-out fixtures at Suncorp.
The Dolphins are seemingly unaffected with only two home games during this stint, one will be at Redcliffe against the Panthers and the other in Perth against the Knights with an away trip to Bundaberg to play the Bulldogs.
This was the best performance of any of the Australian regional teams on a side tour for the Lions, en route to a disappointing third place finish at the 1968 World Cup.