The St George Nostalgia Thread

RedVHeartbeat

RedVHeartbeat

SGI NSW Cup
St George Dragons rugby league

'DRAGON SLAYERS' HAVE NEW JERSEY
Who here knew our current RedV on white jumper was not our first. There was a prototype first used in 1929 season (see inset left) after St George now commonly referred to as the 'Dragon Slayers' has done away with the previous jersey with the broad horizontal red/white bars.

Sydney, 31 August 1929: After 18 rounds of football, Saints finished the season in 2nd position on 27 points and qualified for the semi-finals. On September 7th, Saints lined up against Newtown for the minor semi final at Earl Park. A healthy 7000 fans werw to go home disappointed after going down by the narrowest of margins 8-7. The media of the day wrote "despite missing out on a premiership, Saints can be proud about their effort and are one of the teams to watch in the seasons to come.

Also, 1929 was the final year for the brilliant three quarter George 'Bluey' Carstairs (see inset below) who decided to retire from first grade football. A Marist Brothers junior, Carstairs played all his 1st grade football with Saints with 79 games including the club's first ever game in 1921 and goes down in history as the club's first ever try scorer.
Playing at centre or on the wing, the big three quarter scored 11 tries & 79 goals (191pts). Carstairs was also a 1921 Kangaroo, playing for Australia 17 times including two test matches. Frank Gray, another 1921 founding player also retired after 33 games for the red and whites.
In other news, '29 saw the end of Rugby League's first club Glebe, after their fruitless search for an adequate home ground.

1658295011029.png
 
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Chris M

Chris M

SGI NSW Cup
RedVHeartbeat said:
St George Dragons rugby league

'DRAGON SLAYERS' HAVE NEW JERSEY
Who here knew our current RedV on white jumper was not our first. There was a prototype first used in 1929 season (see inset left) after St George now commonly referred to as the 'Dragon Slayers' has done away with the previous jersey with the broad horizontal red/white bars.

Sydney, 31 August 1929: After 18 rounds of football, Saints finished the season in 2nd position on 27 points and qualified for the semi-finals. On September 7th, Saints lined up against Newtown for the minor semi final at Earl Park. A healthy 7000 fans werw to go home disappointed after going down by the narrowest of margins 8-7. The media of the day wrote "despite missing out on a premiership, Saints can be proud about their effort and are one of the teams to watch in the seasons to come.

Also, 1929 was the final year for the brilliant three quarter George 'Bluey' Carstairs (see inset below) who decided to retire from first grade football. A Marist Brothers junior, Carstairs played all his 1st grade football with Saints with 79 games including the club's first ever game in 1921 and goes down in history as the club's first ever try scorer.
Playing at centre or on the wing, the big three quarter scored 11 tries & 79 goals (191pts). Carstairs was also a 1921 Kangaroo, playing for Australia 17 times including two test matches. Frank Gray, another 1921 founding player also retired after 33 games for the red and whites.
In other news, '29 saw the end of Rugby League's first club Glebe, after their fruitless search for an adequate home ground.

View attachment 109
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Is there any possibility to upload a bigger copy of that top photo?
 
Eric

Eric

Staff

St George team of the century, chosen by a panel of former players, officials, rugby league journalists and historians.​

  1. Graeme Langlands
  2. Johnny King
  3. Reg Gasnier
  4. Mark Gasnier
  5. Eddie Lumsden
  6. Brian Clay
  7. Billy Smith
  8. Billy Wilson
  9. Ken Kearney
  10. Craig Young
  11. Norm Provan
  12. Rod Reddy
  13. Johnny Raper
  • Harry Bath
  • Doug McRitchie
  • Neville Smith
  • Ian Walsh
Coach: Frank Burge
 
jodragon40

jodragon40

Staff
Eric said:

St George team of the century, chosen by a panel of former players, officials, rugby league journalists and historians.​

  1. Graeme Langlands
  2. Johnny King
  3. Reg Gasnier
  4. Mark Gasnier
  5. Eddie Lumsden
  6. Brian Clay
  7. Billy Smith
  8. Billy Wilson
  9. Ken Kearney
  10. Craig Young
  11. Norm Provan
  12. Rod Reddy
  13. Johnny Raper
  • Harry Bath
  • Doug McRitchie
  • Neville Smith
  • Ian Walsh
Coach: Frank Burge
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What a team, I have been privileged enough in my lifetime to be able to watch the following players:
Langlands
King
M Gasnier
B Smith
Rod Reddy
Craig Young
Personally met:
Langlands
R Gasnier
J Raper
N Provan
Watched our last 3 GF wins 77, 79 and 2010. I can die a happy dragon
 
Chris M

Chris M

SGI NSW Cup
jodragon40 said:
What a team, I have been privileged enough in my lifetime to be able to watch the following players:
Langlands
King
M Gasnier
B Smith
Rod Reddy
Craig Young
Personally met:
Langlands
R Gasnier
J Raper
N Provan
Watched our last 3 GF wins 77, 79 and 2010. I can die a happy dragon
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Still a few more wins to come in your lifetime.
 
RedVHeartbeat

RedVHeartbeat

SGI NSW Cup
Eric said:
  • Eddie Lumsden
  • Brian Clay
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Reckon we can do better than Eddie and Poppa. As the first ever club try scored and a distinguished club and international career.. how about the man I featured in the article, George Carstairs for Lumsden. Not even sure Johnny King deserves his spot but he was a better finisher than Eddie and scored a try in all of his grand final winning appearances (stand corrected).
 
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GCRV

GCRV

SGI NSW Cup
RedVHeartbeat said:
As for Poppa who was solid without being brilliant in both attack and defense, he has plenty of opposition in Trent Barrett, Tony Branson, Peter Carroll, Johnny Hawke, Phil Hawthorne, Anthony Mundine, Arnold Traynor. I think the selectors gave Poppa the nod because of his incredible resilience and longevity with the astounding feat of being the club sole 5/8 thru all 11 seasons of our golden decade plus one.
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Personally I'd have Barrett behind Soward, Mundine, Widdop.
 
RedVHeartbeat

RedVHeartbeat

SGI NSW Cup
GCRV said:
Personally I'd have Barrett behind Soward, Mundine, Widdop.
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GCRV GCRV I misworded my previous post and have now altered it. Perhaps you can also alter the quote too.

Forgot Widdop.. but do the selectors allow overseas imports into our hallowed top 100 players. For sheer ability to steer the team Barret is my man. The others are individualists like Benji Marshall. Brilliant but with little organizing skill.
 
Morgan

Morgan

SGI NSW Cup
RedVHeartbeat said:
GCRV GCRV I misworded my previous post and have now altered it. Perhaps you can also alter the quote too.

Forgot Widdop.. but do the selectors allow overseas imports into our hallowed top 100 players. For sheer ability to steer the team Barret is my man. The others are individualists like Benji Marshall. Brilliant but with little organizing skill.
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Benji Marshall definitely isn't and never was a halfback. That's for sure. I obviously never saw Pop Clay play but he was obviously a team man. Maybe he didn't have the brilliance of Mundine or Barrett but the team didn't require that of him. The team didn't require that of Barrett either. It just needed him to take the ball to the line, both hands, so opposition couldn't so heavily mark Gaz, Coops, Blacklock and etc. But Barrett didn't do that. He would have been a much better centre or lock. At least much better for that team.

For this reason the only challenger to Pop Clay I can think of would be Sowie.
 
Morgan

Morgan

SGI NSW Cup
RedVHeartbeat said:
I beg to differ. He did take the ball to the line as he was the team ball player and organiser. He was capable of taking on the line too. A quality all round footy player.
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It seemed to me the opposition knew he was going to run or pass about a week before he did it. And him running it was ok because he was able to beat tackles himself but he couldn't do it near as well as Gaz, Coops and etc. His running the ball more often than not screwed up Gaz and Coops. They had to go to dummy half to find the ball.

With the best playmakers like Johns, Thurston and etc, they invariably could pick and choose to run or pass at the right time and the opposition didn't know about until the moment it was done.
 
Morgan

Morgan

SGI NSW Cup
RedVHeartbeat said:
To me Thurston sometimes did not know what he was doing let alone the opposition know. Often his overused double dummy confused his team mates more than the opposition too. Joey Johns was our best modern era playmaker. with Sterling then Barrett. Turvy was a better take on the line half, much like Tommy.
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Saying Barrett was better than Thurston is like saying Blake Lawrie is better than Payne Haas, Mitch Rein was better than Cameron Smith and etc in my view but what would I know?
 
Morgan

Morgan

SGI NSW Cup
RedVHeartbeat said:
When Thurston got his play spot on .. yes he was up there with Joey and Sterlo. But when he fluffed it he looked a goose. Just my opinion. Barret always seemed to be heavily involved in everything good the Dragons did. Reason I rated him above others.
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Okay. Let's agree to disagree. One thing for certain, all of those you mentioned and Sowie as well had far more runs on the board. And no one can talk about Gaz, Coops, Young, Ryles, Bailey, Kite, Tinga and more and say Barrett didn't have enoygh support.

One could make that argument for Widdop's lack of success.
 
RedV01

RedV01

SGI NSW Cup
jodragon40 said:
Just a thought trying to help here and please🙏 dont shoot the messenger. Perhaps we could invite people to join the forum with some actual knowledge of football? Nothing personal.
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Well, well, look at Jo Dragon. Left behind his usual bakings for a much more spicy approach. BTW this is a rugby league forum. I presume there are equivalents for "football":unsure:.
 
Morgan

Morgan

SGI NSW Cup
RedV01 said:
Well, well, look at Jo Dragon. Left behind his usual bakings for a much more spicy approach. BTW this is a rugby league forum. I presume there are equivalents for "football":unsure:.
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Jo Dragon is pissing on us without even the courtesy of calling it rain. Let's see him put his tail between his legs after losing on Monday morning.
 
jodragon40

jodragon40

Staff
RedV01 said:
Well, well, look at Jo Dragon. Left behind his usual bakings for a much more spicy approach. BTW this is a rugby league forum. I presume there are equivalents for "football":unsure:.
Click to expand...
When I was playing and coaching and I was asked where I was going on a weekend I replied to football. Have I been wrong all my life?
 
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