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The Brisbane Broncos Rugby League Football Club Ltd., commonly referred to as the Broncos, is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in April 1987, the Broncos currently compete in the National Rugby League (NRL). The club has won seven premierships, including two New South Wales Rugby League premierships, a Super League premiership and four NRL premierships. The Broncos have won two World Club Challenges, and four minor premierships in multiple competitions. Prior to 2015, Brisbane had never been defeated in a grand final, and since 1991, the club has failed to qualify for the finals five times. The club is one of the most successful clubs in the National Rugby League since it began in 1998, winning three premierships. The club is one of the most successful clubs in the history of rugby league, having won 59.9% of games played since its induction in 1988, second only to Melbourne Storm with 67.3%.
Wayne James Bennett, also known by the nickname "Benny", is an Australian professional rugby league football coach and former player. He is currently the head coach of the Dolphins in the National Rugby League (NRL), and has previously coached the South Sydney Rabbitohs, the Brisbane Broncos, the Newcastle Knights, the St George Illawarra Dragons, the Canberra Raiders, the Queensland Maroons State of Origin team, the NRL All Stars and the Australian Kangaroos national team as well as the England and Great Britain national teams.
The Adelaide Rams was an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Adelaide, South Australia. The team was formed in 1995 for the planned rebel Super League competition. The Rams lasted two seasons, the first in the Super League competition in 1997 and the second in the first season of the National Rugby League (NRL) in 1998. The Rams were not a successful club, winning only 13 out of 42 games. However crowd numbers in the first season were the fifth highest of any first-grade club that year, but dwindled to sixteenth in the second season. The Adelaide club was shut down at the end of the 1998 season as a result of poor on-field performances, dwindling crowd numbers, financial losses and a reduction in the number of teams in the NRL. They remain the only team from the state of South Australia to have participated in top-level rugby league in Australia.
The Gold Coast Chargers were a professional rugby league club which played in the New South Wales Rugby League premiership from 1988 to 1994, the Australian Rugby League premiership from 1995 to 1997, and the National Rugby League premiership in 1998. They first played under the name Gold Coast-Tweed Giants from 1988 to 1989, then Gold Coast Seagulls from 1990 to 1995, very briefly as the Gold Coast Gladiators and finally Gold Coast Chargers from 1996 to 1998.
Bradley Carnegie Thorn is a New Zealand Australian rugby union coach and former rugby league and rugby union footballer. Born in New Zealand, he represented Australia in rugby league and New Zealand in rugby union in a twenty-two year career as a player, starting at age nineteen and finishing at age forty-one. He was the head coach of the Australian Super Rugby Pacific team, the Queensland Reds. Thorn is their second longest-serving coach in history and their longest serving coach in the professional era.
Shaun Berrigan is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played as a hooker, centre, halfback and five-eighth in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.
Graham Ernest Murray was an Australian professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1970s and 1980s, and coached in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.
Dale Shearer, also known by the nickname of "Rowdy", is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1980s and 1990s. A Queensland State of Origin and Australian international representative of Aboriginal heritage, he played club football in Queensland, New South Wales and England. His playing career included a NSWRL Premiership win with Manly-Warringah in 1987 and a Rugby League World Cup Final win in 1988. Ten years after his retirement, Shearer was still the all-time top try-scorer in State of Origin and he was named on the wing of the Indigenous Australian team of the century.
Kevin David Walters is an Australian professional rugby league football coach and former player, who has been the head coach of the Brisbane Broncos in the National Rugby League (NRL) since 2021.
Tonie Carroll is a former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s. An Australian and New Zealand international and Queensland State of Origin representative, he played for the Brisbane Broncos of the NRL and Leeds Rhinos in the Super League. Carroll retired from playing at the end of 2008, before making a brief mid-season comeback to the Broncos in 2009. Carroll was a utility player, appearing at centre, five-eighth, second-row, or lock.
Darren Smith is an Australian former rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s. He played for the Australian national side and also Queensland in the State of Origin. His club football career was spent with the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, Brisbane Broncos and St. Helens. He is the brother of fellow Maroon and international, Jason Smith.
Benjamin Ikin is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer, and the CEO of the Queensland Rugby League from 22 May 2023. He previously worked in football operations roles for the Brisbane Broncos from June 2021 until May 2023, and had been the host of talk show NRL 360 on Fox League as well as a commentator for the Nine Network and Fox Sports.
The 1997 Super League season was a breakaway professional rugby league football competition in Australia and the only one to be run by the News Limited-controlled Super League organisation. Eight teams which had broken away from the existing Australian Rugby League, in addition to the newly created Adelaide Rams and Hunter Mariners, competed over eighteen weekly rounds of the regular season. The top five teams then played a series of knock-out finals which culminated in a September grand final played in Brisbane between the Brisbane Broncos and Cronulla.
Michael De Vere is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s. He represented Australia in four tests and New South Wales in five State of Origin matches. A goal-kicking outside back who could play centre, wing or fullback and also a skilful goal-kicker who ended his career having kicked at 76.62%, De Vere played club football for the Brisbane Broncos in the NRL, with whom he won the 1997, 1998 and 2000 premierships. He later played with English club the Huddersfield Giants in the Super League, reaching the 2006 Challenge Cup final. In 2009, he instigated a comeback with the Brisbane Broncos, which only lasted one game before he retired.
Paul Gregory Green was an Australian professional rugby league football coach, best known for taking the North Queensland Cowboys to the NRL premiership in 2015, and a professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s.
Michael Maguire is an Australian professional rugby league football coach and former player who last coached New Zealand at international level. He played as a fullback, winger and centre in the 1990s.
1998 brought the start of the National Rugby League competition. Super League (Australia) ended its 1 year competition and the Australian Rugby League also ended theirs to merge as one. But for some clubs it came at a cost. For the Hunter Mariners and Perth Reds from Super League (Australia) and the South Queensland Crushers from the Australian Rugby League, these franchises ended. But a new franchise was created that was the first team in the state of Victoria: the Melbourne Storm.
Keenan Palasia is a Samoa international rugby league footballer who plays as a prop and lock for the Gold Coast Titans in the National Rugby League (NRL).
Rona Peters is a New Zealand rugby league footballer who plays for the Tweed Heads Seagulls in the QRL Women's Premiership and Runaway Bay Seagulls in the SEQW Premiership.
Selwyn Cobbo is a professional rugby league footballer who plays as a winger for the Brisbane Broncos in the National Rugby League (NRL).