This is a list of the winners of First Grade Rugby League Premiership competitions held on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia.
The current competition is conducted under the auspices of the Central Coast Division Rugby League, an affiliate of NSW Country Rugby League and the New South Wales Rugby League.
First Grade Premiers
Background
Football matches under Rugby Union rules were played by clubs from Gosford, Ourimbah and Wyong in the years 1905, 1906 and 1907. From 1908 to 1911, Wyong entered a team in the Newcastle Rugby Union competitions.
During 1911 Gosford Football Club played both Union and League matches. Rugby League teams from the NSWRFL lower grade competitions visited and played against Gosford: Balmain on July 15 and South Sydney Federal on September 2.
Wyong joined the Newcastle Rugby League competition in 1912, competing in Second Grade that season and in 1913 and 1914.
1915 to 1936
The first Rugby League association on the Central Coast was inaugurated in May 1915. Competition matches were played in June. Ourimbah defeated Erina in a Final on August 29. The other teams competing were Matcham, Wyong and Yarramalong.
No competition took place in 1916 or 1917 and in 1918 only a few matches were played.
Competition Rugby League was revived in 1919. The season format was to conduct a premiership competition, in which all teams played the same number of matches, followed by a knock-out. From 1920 until 1932, the Knock-Out involved all teams.
Gaps in the table in 1927 and 1929 are due to the limited availability of issues of the Gosford Times in those years. A list of previous winners was, however, published in the Wyong Advocate in 1932.
In 1928 the Association decided to hold only a Second Grade competition. Ourimbah and Wyong fielded two teams. Gosford entered their First Grade team in the North Sydney Juniors competition and their Second Grade competed in the local competition. In 1931, however, a newspaper article stated that Wyong had won the last four first grade competitions. This suggests that the local competition of 1928 was elevated to First Grade status.
In 1933 Kincumber won a Knock-Out Final but premiers Morisset were able to challenge them in a Grand Final.
In 1934 a Club Competition was conducted and given prominence. Points from both grades counted, though first grade points were worth double (i.e. four points for a win). Wyong and Morisset initially finished level on 59 Club Championship points.
A play-off final was held, which Morisset won. However, on appeal to the parent body, Newcastle Rugby League, a protest that the local association had dismissed was overturned. Wyong were awarded an additional four points for a first grade game they had lost, in which Ourimbah fielded an unregistered player.
Earlier in 1934 Woy Woy defeated a depleted Ourimbah team by 102 to nil in a First Grade match.
1937 to 1939
In 1932 Gosford Football Club began playing challenge matches, separate from the competition matches played on Saturdays. The format was to invite teams from outside the district to play matches at Gosford Showground. The team that defeated Gosford by the biggest margin was invited back at the end of the season to play a grand final for a trophy cup.
Woy Woy left the local competition and adopted this format in 1935, arranging their own challenge matches and grand final each year until 1939. In 1937 they ran the challenge in two grades, with the B grade team named Ettalong. In 1939, both grade teams in the Woy Woy challenge cup were named Ettalong.
Competition in a league format did not take place between 1937 and 1939. A meeting of the Erina Shire Rugby Football League in May 1937 decided to suspend the competition, attributing to a decline of interest in Saturday football to a rise in SP betting. The lodgement of protests had become common in the mid 1930s and this may have also contributed.
Gosford's 1939 Challenge Cup Grand Final was postponed due to the outbreak of war.
1940 to 1946
Challenge Cup matches were played in 1940 mostly by Gosford and Ourimbah. Wyong club was revived and played a few games. Ettalong played at least one match, visiting Ourimbah on May 19.
Just seven issues of the Gosford Times are available for the seven years, 1941 to 1948, so information on Central Coast football during this time is limited. Ourimbah and Woy Woy hosted challenge matches in 1941. Rugby League in the years 1942 to 1944 may have been restricted to school football – Gosford High School hosted Randwick in July 1943.