Jamie Parsons

Not too long after the town of Rankins Springs upped and moved itself 10km down the road from its original location at the old pub near a freshwater spring to get itself closer to the new railway, the local townspeople and farmers decided they were here for good, so we better get something to do.

In 1925 & 1926, the same time as schools were opening in Rankins Springs and nearby Erigolia, a tennis club, a cricket club and an aussie rules club were formed, and on the 15th May 1926, the Rankins Springs Rugby League Football Club played their first game.

First led by president Mr S. Bender and secretary Mr O. Day, the club decided to play in royal blue and gold, and ran out to play Sims Gap, only to lose by one point.

The soon-to-be-called Dragons have had the last laugh, however, as they are about to celebrate their 100th anniversary this Saturday, while Sims Gap recently had much of itself burned down and had to be saved by Rankins Springs firefighters, with limited sightings of a Sims Gap rugby league team in recent decades.

Despite the fortunes of the town and it’s surrounds going up-and-down and back-and-forth throughout it’s 103 years, one word that best describes the club and the town is Resilience with a capital R.

With the town going through economic hardship, wars, droughts, business closures, population decline and pub fires, the club has ridden the waves and had it’s own share of foldings, shortages and sadness.

However harsh the times have been, the club and the community have come through the other side through the strength and hard work of its people.

And while the aussie rules club failed, the cricket club was lost for many years (though it’s seen a recent comeback!), and basketball is no longer around, rugby league has been kept alive in The Springs, despite several gravestones along the way.

The club first kept itself alive through community dances, which would raise about 3 or 4 pounds.

It didn’t last too long though, with the club first folding in July 1926, two months after it was established.

In August 1926, the club returned, which would prove a common theme over the next 100 years.

In the pre-Group 17 era, the club, sometimes called the ‘Rainbows’, would challenge nearby towns, such as Weethalle, Tallimba, Erigolia and Merriwagga, for challenge cups donated by local families, such as the Tooth Cup, the Beaumont Cup and the Walton Shield.

The club joined the re-zoned Group 17 competition in 1950, becoming part of Zone 2 and winning their first premiership in 1953 under the coaching of Clarrie Wood, defeating Merriwagga, which now counts as the first of several grand final victories against the merged Goolgowi-Merriwagga RLFC, as they claim themselves to be.

Rebranding themselves the next year as a red-and-white team, wearing a white jersey with a Red V, the town would soon become synonymous with the Dragons, as ‘The Springs’ entered a period of prosperity, with new churches, a new hall, a golf club and basketball competition springing up.

The Dragons would go on to win another Zone 2 premiership in 1962, defeating Darlington Point, who later had to merge with Coleambally and join another competition out of shame.

The Dragons folded in 1971 and were lost in the wilderness for 5 years.

In 1976, some bright-eyed volunteers, including local copper Les Bulluss, Garry Lamont and Maurice Hewitt fought the Dragons’ case at the Group 17 meeting and were re-admitted to the competition in reserve grade with Peter Martin as coach, later returning to first grade in 1977.

It wasn’t long before coaches Kerry Gallagher and later, Garb Saunders had the club back in Grand Finals, but success was a while away yet.

The ‘80s were reportedly a lot of fun, but some of that fun turned detrimental, with the entire team turning up drunk to a grand final at least once.

In 1991, the club lifted the reserve defeating Weethalle, who folded the next season (becoming a common theme), and many of their players subsequently moved to play for the Dragons.

In 1993, the first grade premiership finally came, with Stuart ‘Boots’ Vearing leading the team to a 34-16 victory over Hay. The club also won the reserve grade premiership that year, and later the Clayton Cup.

The club made the Grand Final in 9 of the last 15 Group 17 years, further winning firsts & reserves in 1997, where Chris Richards made every opposition side look foolish, and firsts again in 2000.

They did this despite the tragedy of the pub burning down in 1996, with the after-match drinks having to take place at the golf club for six whole years.

The millennium drought took its toll on the town and by extension the club, reserve grade folding in 2001 and first grade in 2004, but the team returned to fight on in 2005-06.

By 2007, Group 17 was dead, and the dreams of many a young man looking forward to playing for their hometown club were shattered across the area.

Until the miracle happened, five of the smallest rugby league clubs in the state, together with Narrandera, unburied themselves and rose from the dead after twelve years in the grave and created the Proten Community Cup.

The Dragons were alive again under the leadership of Brent Parsons, Jamie Parsons, Andrew Streat and Wally Lamont and in the eight years since have brought people both old and new back to the community.

They won the first Proten Cup premiership, defeating Goolgowi-Merriwagga, and completed a fairytale comeback story in 2021, starting the year at 0-3 before winning six straight games, including a 93-minute golden point semi-final v Hillston, a 20-0 victory in the prelim final over Barellan at Barellan, and defeating the undefeated minor premiers Goolgowi-Merriwagga (who hadn’t lost in two seasons) in the Grand Final on home turf.

And not content yet, they pulled it off a second time, defeating a Narrandera team, who also hadn’t lost in two seasons, in the 2024 Grand Final at Narrandera, coming back from 18-4 down at halftime.

Along the way, the girls decided to get in on the fun, forming the ‘Dragonettes’ women’s team in 2021.

The Dragons will celebrate 100 years on Saturday, remembering 100 years of fun, victory, mateship, pain, heartbreak, nonsense, fistfights, buffoonery and love.

But in that they will know it would never have got to this point without the hard work, stress and dedication of those who have given their all for the red-and-white (and blue-and-gold), those who have spent hard-earned money keeping the club alive, those who have fought tooth-and-nail with the higher-ups to get the little guy a fair go, those who have stayed up nights, done the paperwork, drove the buses and turned up in the heat, rain and frost to put training on for the boys and girls.

For those in the early days, the glory days and now.

The grandfathers who ran the club on chook raffles and bindi-covered fields, and their grandchildren dealing with social media and PPIS points, the Dragons have stayed alive on volunteers and dedication, to continue standing proudly as one of the smallest communities to field a rugby league side in the country.

Rugby league’s future may be uncertain in the eyes of insurance and concussions, but one thing is for certain – while there are still hard-working country folk in Rankins Springs, the Dragons will continue, even if they have to die and resurrect a few more times to do it.

If it means the Springs has a team, no doubt The King Wally Lamont will pull the boots on when he’s 100 years old if he must.

The Rankins Springs Dragons RLFC centenary function will be held this Saturday 14^th March at the War Memorial Hall starting from 5pm. It’s been a great 100 years for the Dragons, and here’s to another hundred.