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Rugby league is the most popular winter sport in the Australian state of Queensland.〔http://jss.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/2/221〕 ==History== The earliest record of rugby football being played in Queensland is in 1876, when the Brisbane Football Club, formed in 1866 to play 'Melbourne Rules', commenced playing according to the recently codified Rugby (Union) rules, to fit in with two newly formed football clubs (Rangers and Bonnet Rouge), before reverting to Australian Rules (with occasional Rugby matches) in 1879. The Queensland Rugby Union was subsequently constituted as the Northern Rugby Union in 1883, and a year later the first organised club competition took place in Brisbane. On 16 May 1908 the first game of rugby league was played in the state when The touring New Zealand team played Queensland at the Brisbane Exhibition Ground. The advent of professional rugby league in New South Wales saw many Queensland rugby players leaving for Sydney to play league. In 1908, the Queensland Rugby Union banned its players from going to Sydney to play league, which resulted in disgruntled players forming the Queensland Amateur Rugby Football League (QARFL) (later to be renamed Queensland Rugby League). The new organisation was attacked by both the local press and the QRU for introducing professionalism, which they claimed would destroy the sport. The first official club competition kicked off in Brisbane on May 8, 1909. Of particular note was that at this time, league put down strong roots in the bush and in working class communities and these areas are still the heartland of the modern game of rugby league. World War I, from 1914 to 1918 saw some major rugby union clubs switch to rugby league. In 1922 the Brisbane Rugby Football League (BRFL, later BRL) was formed out of dissatisfaction with the way the QRL ran the game. Those involved took particular exception to the salary being earned by Harry Sunderland as secretary of the QRL. By the mid-1970s, crowds began to desert the BRL competition. Clubs found themselves in financial hardship, and the public began to support the Sydney competition which by then was being broadcast in Queensland. A statewide competition - the Winfield State League would run in parallel to the BRL competition from 1982 to 1995. Newly formed Brisbane Broncos along with the Gold Coast-Tweed Giants joined the New South Wales Rugby League premiership in 1988. In 1992 it was decided that South Queensland Crushers and North Queensland Cowboys would be admitted into the New South Wales Rugby League competition as part of the League's expansion plans for professional rugby league in Australia. Gold Coast Titans joined the National Rugby League in 2007 to bring the total of Queensland-based teams up to three. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rugby league in Queensland」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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