2005 NRL grand final
| 2005 NRL Grand Final | |||||||||||||
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| Date | 2 October 2005 | ||||||||||||
| Stadium | Telstra Stadium | ||||||||||||
| Location | Sydney, Australia | ||||||||||||
| Clive Churchill Medal | Scott Prince, (WST) | ||||||||||||
| National anthem | Natalie Bassingthwaighte | ||||||||||||
| Referees | Tim Mander | ||||||||||||
| Attendance | 82,453 | ||||||||||||
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The 2005 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the National Rugby League's 2005 Telstra Premiership season. It was played on the night of Sunday, 2 October at Sydney's Telstra Stadium between the Wests Tigers and North Queensland Cowboys, the only two clubs in the competition that hadn't yet been to the NRL grand final. The game set a new record for the highest television audience in Australia for a rugby league match since the introduction of the OzTam ratings system in 2001.
In a match-up suggested by bookmakers at the start of the season as a 500/1 chance for the 2005 grand final's opponents, the fourth-placed Wests Tigers and fifth-placed North Queensland Cowboys had both reached their first decider. The two teams had met three times during the regular season, with the Tigers having won twice. The most recent of these meetings was the Tigers' 50 – 6 victory in the first week of the finals series.
The 2005 NRL season was the 98th season of professional rugby league football in Australia and the eighth run by the National Rugby League. The lineup of clubs remained unchanged from the previous year, with fifteen teams contesting the 2005 Telstra Premiership.
For the Wests Tigers, their first grand final appearance had come at the end of their sixth season (since the merger of the Balmain Tigers and the Western Suburbs Magpies). Only centre Paul Whatuira and full-back Brett Hodgson had previously played in a grand final. Whatuira won with Penrith in 2003 and Hodgson lost with Parramatta in 2001. Their fullback, Brett Hodgson was the 2005 regular season's top point-scorer.
For the North Queensland Cowboys, their grand final debut had come at the end of their eleventh season. Cowboys' five-eighth Johnathan Thurston, the 2005 season's Dally M Medallist, had won the previous year's grand final with the Bulldogs. Also, winger Matt Sing lost in 2000 with the Sydney Roosters. Their fullback Matt Bowen was the 2005 regular season's top try scorer. However their Queensland State of Origin forward Carl Webb was suspended for punching Melbourne's Ryan Hoffman in the final round of the regular season so he was forced to watch the entire Cowboys' finals run from the sidelines. Airline Qantas added an extra two flights and the Townsville Bulletin newspaper chartered a Boeing 747 to take North Queensland fans to their team's first grand final.
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