NRL season 2008
| 2008 National Rugby League | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Teams | 16 |
| Premiers |
 Manly Warringah (7th title) |
| Minor premiers |  Melbourne |
| Matches played | 201 |
| Points scored | 8470 |
| Attendance | 3279663 |
| Top points scorer(s) |
 Luke Covell (206) |
| Player of the year |
Matt Orford (Dally M Medal) |
| Top try-scorer(s) |
Brett Stewart (22) |
The 2008 NRL season was the 101st season of professional rugby league club competition in Australia, and the eleventh run by the National Rugby League. For the second year, sixteen teams competed for the 2008 Telstra Premiership title. The season commenced with the first matches played on 14 March and ended with the Grand Final, played on 5 October. The premiership was won by the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles who set the record for the highest Grand Final victory in Australia's rugby league history.
2008 also marked the launch of the National Youth Competition, an under 20 competition running parallel to the senior competition under the sponsorship name, the Toyota Cup.
Rugby league was first introduced into Australia in 1907, with a meeting in Sydney on 8 August 1908 effectively forming a new breakaway league from the New South Wales Rugby Union. The new body was known as the New South Wales Rugby Football League, and became the first professional sporting code in Australia. In the following months, eight Sydney-based teams were formed and signed up to play in the New South Wales Rugby Football League's premiership, with another club joining a week into competition.
The New South Wales Rugby League continued to run the competition up until and including 1994 when it passed on responsibility to the Australian Rugby League, the national authority for rugby league in Australia. In 1997 a rival Super League competition run by News Limited was started and signed up several existing teams from the Australian Rugby League. After both bodies lost a lot of money that year, a truce was signed and a new competition was formed for the 1998 season, under the brand name "National Rugby League."
Regarded as the spiritual home of rugby league in Australia, Birchgrove Oval hosted the official launch of the NRL's 2008 Centenary rugby league season. During the season, the NRL staged a number of celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the sport in Australia. The opening match of the 2008 season was held between the remaining two "foundation clubs" from 1908, the Sydney Roosters and the South Sydney Rabbitohs. A 'Heritage round' was introduced to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the first round of competition in the New South Wales Rugby League, whereby teams faced opponents that entered the competition in similar time frames.
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