Bryson Luff & Tallon Smith

The already bulging Coolah Kangaroos trophy cabinet welcomed a new addition on Saturday night when their first-grade side was awarded the highly prestigious Clayton Cup by NSW Rugby League.

The Clayton Cup dates back to 1937 and is awarded annually to the NSW country rugby league team with the best overall record for that season. 

Two-time Roos premiership forward Casey Burgess said that while the team didn’t have the goal pencilled in anywhere at the start of the year, it was an incredible achievement.

“It’s not something that we actually strived for, we didn’t go out and try and get it,” he said.

“Towards the back end of the year when we hit the semis, that’s when we started thinking ‘we’ve made the semis and we’re undefeated’.

“We didn’t want to lose [from there] obviously, we wanted to win the Grand Final, and I thought it would put us in contention for it.

“Two years [out of recess], I never thought we could achieve it.”

Prior to winning the Clayton Cup, the Kangaroos first grade team, which went through the 2025 Christie and Hood Castlereagh League season undefeated, had claimed every piece of silverware available to them, those being the Knockout Shield, the Boronia (Challenge) Cup, the Premiership Shield and the Castlereagh Cup.

Additionally, the club’s League Tag side also hold the Jessica Skinner Challenge Cup and the Castlereagh League Tag Premiership Shield after what has been a stellar year for the Kangaroos.

The club’s first grade side went through the competition undefeated, winning 15 games, scoring 540 points in the process, whilst conceding 194, their season cresting with a hard fought 24-18 grand final victory over the Coonabarabran Unicorns at Coolah’s Bowen Oval on August 30 in front of a huge audience.

Despite the fact that the cup is awarded at the discretion of the NSWRL, the fact that the Roos were the only undefeated first grade side in the state meant the playing group did feel the pressure of expectation throughout the finals.

“It probably was in a lot of the boys’ minds, I know my brother Chanse, he was definitely thinking about it,” he said.

“I tried just not to think about it too much, just so that the pressure didn’t build up.

“It was the best kept secret in the Castlereagh, but when Tim [Del Guzzo] and Bob [Walsh] showed up at our presentation, we knew.”

Meanwhile, the club also proudly highlighted the fact that 14 of their grand final side had played their junior football with Coolah Junior Rugby League.

Coolah is the second Castlereagh League club to win the Clayton Cup, with the Gulgong Bull Terriers also lifting the time-honoured piece of silverware in 2023.