1976 Brisbane Rugby League season

Brisbane Rugby League

Sport	Rugby league
Number of teams	8
Country	Australia
Premiers	Western Suburbs

The 1976 Brisbane Rugby League premiership was the 69th season of Brisbane's semi-professional rugby league football competition. Eight teams from across Brisbane competed for the premiership, which culminated in a grand final match between the Western Suburbs and Eastern Suburbs clubs.

Season summary

Teams played each other three times, with 21 rounds of competition played. It resulted in a top five of Eastern Suburbs, Western Suburbs, Past Brothers, Redcliffe and Wynnum-Manly. However, Wynnum-Manly and Southern Suburbs finished the season equal on points, with Magpies defeating Seagulls in a mid-week play-off.

The 1976 season's Rothmans Medallist was Northern Suburbs forward Darryl Brohman. Brohman would later sign for Sydney club Penrith and feature for Canterbury in its 1984 NSWRL grand final win.

Teams

Club	Home ground	Coach	Captain
Eastern Suburbs	Langlands Park	Des Morris	Des Morris
Fortitude Valley	Neumann Oval
Northern Suburbs	Bishop Park
Past Brothers	Corbett Park
Redcliffe	Dolphin Oval
Southern Suburbs	Davies Park	Wayne Bennett
Western Suburbs	Purtell Park	Ron Raper
Wynnum-Manly	Kougari Oval

Ladder

	Team	Pld	W	D	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts
1	Eastern Suburbs	21	15	0	6	482	313	+169	30
2	Western Suburbs	21	15	0	6	420	280	+140	30
3	Past Brothers	21	13	0	8	395	260	+135	26
4	Redcliffe	21	11	0	10	367	378	-11	22
5	Wynnum-Manly	21	8	0	13	303	335	-32	16
6	Southern Suburbs	21	8	0	13	329	428	-99	16
7	Fortitude Valley	21	8	0	13	276	387	-111	16
8	Northern Suburbs	21	6	0	15	291	482	-191	12

Finals

Home	Score	Away	Match Information
			Date and Time	Venue	Referee	Crowd
Playoff
Wynnum-Manly	defeated by	Southern Suburbs	August 1976	Lang Park
Qualifying Finals
Redcliffe	6-14	Southern Suburbs	28 August 1976	Lang Park	Ian Smith	8,000
Western Suburbs	10–19	Past Brothers	29 August 1976	Lang Park	Bernie Pramberg
Semi Finals
Western Suburbs	11-5	Southern Suburbs	4 September 1975	Lang Park	Ian Smith
Eastern Suburbs	13-3	Past Brothers	5 September 1975	Lang Park	Eddie Ward
Preliminary Final
Past Brothers	10-18	Western Suburbs	12 September 1975	Lang Park	Bernie Pramberg
Grand Final
Eastern Suburbs	1-16	Western Suburbs	19 September 1975	Lang Park	Bernie Pramberg	37,000

Grand Final

Western Suburbs	Position	Eastern Suburbs
Greg McCarthy	FB	Roger Kuhn
Mick Reardon	WG	John Callus
Harry Cameron	CE	Bevan de Bruyn
Steve Crear	CE	Steve Farquhar
Wayne Stewart	WG	Nick Nicolau
Geoff Richardson	FE	Greg Holben
Greg Oliphant	HB	Wayne Lindenberg
Max Williamson	PR	Geoff Naylor
Gary Prickett	HK	John Lang
Bob Green	PR	Rod Morris
John Young	SR	Des Morris
Rod Bradshaw	SR	John Payne
John Ribot	LK	John Abbott
Norm Carr	Reserves	Errol Slingsby
Henry Williamson	Reserves	Alan Currie
Ron Raper	Coach	Des Morris

Western Suburbs made it two premierships in succession, after defeating favourites Eastern Suburbs in an anti-climatic decider.

Easts' solitary point was a field goal by second-rower John Payne, who temporarily gave Tigers the lead in the first-half.

Man of the match Gary Prickett scored the opening try for Wests, with lock John Ribot scoring the second just before half-time. Wests lead 12-1 at half-time and effectively repelled all Easts' efforts in the second-half.

The match was virtually without incident. The most blatant was a high tackle by John Payne on Wests' prop, Max Williamson. Williamson had to be helped from the field, with Payne greceiving a long lecture from referee Bernie Pramberg.

Western Suburbs 16 (Tries: Gary Prickett, John Ribot. Goals: 5)

Eastern Suburbs 1 (Field goal: John Payne)