March 19, 1996: Remembering the worst 'Teams Tuesday' in history
Eight clubs were unable to name their line-ups for round one 1996 because of a looming player strike.
‘Teams Tuesday’ has become a ‘thing’.
It’s not even necessary now because the reasons Sydney premiership teams were named on Tuesday was because the program was printed overnight.
Since the demise of Big League last year, there is no program in the NRL.
But the naming of the sides generates such social media interest that it was decided the tradition would continue. There are games four days a week, leaving only three needing their news columns filled
With the increasing prevalence of betting in sport, the idea of of naming a team and not being able to bring in players from outside that group without a good reason has plenty of merits in regard to integrity, too.
I was always into Teams Tuesday, before it had a name. When I worked at Australian Associated Press from 1989 to 1994, it was the one big thing each week the papers relied on us for (they did their own as well, the Sydney papers) so I devoted my whole day to it of a Tuesday.
When I moved to the Sydney Morning Herald it was seen as a menial task and my obsession with it was regarded as very curious indeed.
But there are some Teams Tuesdays that were far from menial.
On March 19, 1996 311 Super League-contracted players were refusing to return to the Australian Rugby League so Teams Tuesday was unlike any before or since.
The players had put a list of demands to the ARL if they were to play but because of a stay of court orders, they could be paid by News Limited without playing - but the clubs definitely had to field sides because of the other orders.
The only all-Super League clashes were North Queensland-Canterbury and Brisbane-Auckland. Auckland were assembling a team of local players but still did not name that team on Tuesday.
So all four teams were listed in the next day’s paper as “unavailable”, as were Canberra, Perth, Cronulla and Penrith.
Perth had even said they could not afford to send a team to Sydney.
A strike and forfeits was probably as low as things got throughout the entire Super League War.
So here they are: the teams named on the worst Teams Tuesday in history:
Ps: If you’re new to this site, here’s the deal: I’m writing a book about the 1997 season called Two Tribes. If you subscribe here, you get access to these posts every day, my first book in physical form no matter where you live in the world now, Two Tribes in physical form no matter where you live in the world when it comes out and your membership here is renewed annually completely free until we wind up here on December 19 2022.