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The Corowa Collection: the story of the early years of rugby league on the Murray

Tallon Smith

The Corowa Cougars are a rugby league club steeped in rich history across their 39 years of existence.

Founded in 1986 as the town’s first rugby league club, the Cougars joined the Group 13 Rugby League competition in 1987.

With the town’s main ground, John Foord Oval, home to the Corowa-Rutherglen Roos in the Ovens & Murray Football League in what is an Australian rules-mad region of the state, the club was initially based across the river at the Wahgunyah Recreation Reserve, ground sharing with the Wahgunyah Tigers of the Coreen & District Football League.

The club played in Group 13 until the end of the 1990 season, a league dominated by the bigger and more established Albury, Tumbarumba and Wagga clubs.

The Cougars then joined the newly founded Goulburn Murray Rugby League in 1991, and found immediate success, taking out the competition’s inaugural premiership and repeating the following year.

Given their success, the Corowa club has played in that competition ever since, barring its hiatus from 2009-2013.

During that time, the Cougars joined the Melbourne Rugby League premiership, travelling the three and a half hours to and from Melbourne on a weekly basis, with only one home game a season at best.

They returned to the relaunched Murray Cup in 2014, which reverted back to the Goulburn Murray name in 2022.

In its history, the club has won seven senior men’s premierships, in 1991, 1992, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2006, as well as making nine further grand finals in 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2014, 2016 and 2019.

Below is a collection of newspaper articles, internal club and competition faxes, meeting records and other materials tells the story of a club which has not only survived in a non-traditional rugby league area, but thrived.

This collection of artefacts, preserved by club volunteers, were photographed by Battlers For Bush Footy back in February, and are presented courtesy of club legends Colin Fleming and the late Laurie “Chook” Webb.

The full collection can be viewed by clicking here.