New South Wales Rugby Football League season 1928
| 1928 New South Wales Rugby Football League | |
|---|---|
| Teams | 9 |
| Premiers |
 South Sydney (8th title) |
| Minor premiers |
 St. George (1st title) |
| Matches played | 59 |
| Points scored | 1597 |
| Top points scorer(s) |
Benny Wearing (94) |
| Top try-scorer(s) |
 Tony Redmond (9) |
The 1928 New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership was the twenty-first season of Sydney’s top-level rugby league club competition, Australia’s first. During the season, which lasted from April until September, nine teams from across the city contested the premiership, culminating in a final between Eastern Suburbs and South Sydney.
The season of 1928 was infamous for the Earl Park riot. In a St George home game 21-3 victory over Balmain, Tony Russell of Balmain became involved in a running feud with George Carstairs, the St George captain.
Referee Brannaghan began to lose control of the match when he sent off St George forward Harry Flower early in the second half but allowed Balmain players to stay on the field. After a later incident between Russell and Carstairs resulted in the latter being knocked unconscious and Brannaghan merely cautioning Russell, the crowd's aggravation grew and the situation escalated.
The Earl Park crowd took matters into their own hands by storming the field in an attempt to injure Russell. Police arrived and intervened using handcuffs, batons and fists but not before Russell was badly beaten by the crowd. He suffered leg and head injuries and was put into the same ambulance as George Carstairs where it was reported that Russell attempted to assault Carstairs and ambulance officers had to intervene to restrain him.
A week later, a NSWRL investigation blamed crowd violence and not the players or officials for the disturbance.
Heading into the finals, top placed St. George and Eastern Suburbs were in top form, with St. George losing their only match in round 3 and Eastern Suburbs losing to St. George in round 7 of the 14-week competition. With Saints and Easts finishing on 26 points each, no playoff for the minor premiership was staged to award a right of challenge in the finals, thus negating the good work done by both sides during the premiership rounds and ultimately providing an easier route than otherwise for Souths to take the title away from both minor premiers.
In the semi-finals, Eastern Suburbs beat fourth-placed North Sydney to make the final, whilst South Sydney beat St. George, whom they had lost to 9–8 just three weeks earlier.
A crowd of 25,000 were at the Royal Agricultural Society Grounds to watch the final between South Sydney and Easts, refereed by Lal Deane. George Treweek scored Souths' first try, crashing over under the posts after Easts' fullback Toby fumbled the high kick. Wearing converted. Then Jack Why, Root and Brien combined to put Williams over and Souths took an 8-0 lead. Before the half-ended Wearing kicked a penalty goal from halfway and Quinlivan crossed for another Souths try and a 13-0 lead at the break.
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