1982 NSWRFL season
| 1982 New South Wales Rugby Football League | |
|---|---|
| Teams | 14 |
| Premiers |
 Parramatta (2nd title) |
| Minor premiers |
Parramatta (2nd title) |
| Matches played | 188 |
| Points scored | 5927 |
| Attendance | 1716490 |
| Top points scorer(s) |
Mick Cronin (279) |
| Player of the year |
 Greg Brentnall (Rothmans Medal) |
| Top try-scorer(s) |
Steve Ella (23) |
The 1982 NSWRFL season was the seventy-fifth season of professional rugby league football in Australia. This season saw the New South Wales Rugby Football League’s first expansion since 1967 with the introduction of the first two clubs in over half a century from outside the Sydney area: the Canberra Raiders and the Illawarra Steelers. Therefore, a total of fourteen clubs (including six Sydney-based foundation teams, another six from Sydney, one from greater New South Wales, and one from the Australian Capital Territory) competed for the J J Giltinan Shield and newly created Winfield Cup during the season, which culminated in a grand final between the Parramatta and Manly-Warringah clubs. This season, NSWRFL teams also competed for the 1982 KB Cup.
The first Charity Shield match was played before the 1982 season between the St. George Dragons and South Sydney Rabbitohs.
This year a bronze replica of “the Gladiators” – the 1963 photo taken by John O'Gready of Norm Provan and Arthur Summons’ post-game, mud-caked embrace - was first adopted to adorn the Winfield Cup, the new trophy to be awarded to the grand final winners. Because of the introduction of two new teams, twenty-six (rather than twenty-two) regular season rounds were played from February till August, resulting in a top five of Easts, Newtown, Parramatta, Cronulla and Manly. The new teams, the Illawarra Steelers and the Canberra Raiders, would finish their debut seasons in second last and last place respectively.
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