NSWRL season 1990
| 1990 New South Wales Rugby League premiership | |
|---|---|
| Teams | 16 |
| Premiers |
 Canberra (2nd title) |
| Minor premiers |
Canberra (1st title) |
| Matches played | 183 |
| Points scored | 6107 |
| Attendance | 2209354 |
| Top points scorer(s) |
Mal Meninga (212) |
| Player of the year |
 Peter Sterling (Rothmans Medal) |
| Top try-scorer(s) |
Mal Meninga (17) |
The 1990 New South Wales Rugby League season was the eighty-third season of professional rugby league football in Australia. Sixteen clubs competed for the J J Giltinan Shield and Winfield Cup during the premiership season, which culminated in a grand final between the previous season's premiers, the Canberra Raiders and the Penrith Panthers, who were making their grand final debut.
For the 1990 season, the salary cap was introduced in the New South Wales Rugby League premiership. Twenty-two regular season rounds were played from March till August, resulting in a top six of Canberra, Brisbane, Penrith, Manly, Balmain and Newcastle.
Parramatta's halfback Peter Sterling won the official player of the year award, the Rothmans Medal. The Dally M Medal was awarded to Manly's five-eighth Cliff Lyons. Rugby League Week gave their player of the year award to Canberra Raiders centre and captain, Mal Meninga.
The number of teams competing remained unchanged for the second consecutive year, with sixteen clubs contesting the premiership, including five Sydney-based foundation teams, another six from Sydney, two from greater New South Wales, two from Queensland, and one from the Australian Capital Territory
1990 saw the NSWRL's advertising shift to a new level of sophistication, marking the first use of Tina Turner's 1989 hit "The Best". The league and its Sydney advertising agency Hertz Walpole struck gold in forging a link between the game and the song, which would become the soundtrack to a marketing success story that skyrocketed right up to a point of self-implosion in the Super League war of 1996-1997.
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