The aim of this Rugby League Project is to collect and present full details of every significant game of rugby league ever played. It is compiled on an entirely voluntary, part-time basis by three individuals: Shawn Dollin, Andrew Ferguson and Bill Bates, who love the game and love statistics. It also wouldn't be where it is today without the immense contributions of a number of individuals amongst the rugby league community.
It is also important to note that it is far from finished - hence the word "Project". While we have a number of collective goals on what we hope to achieve, there is no defined finish line. Our plan is to just keep on going! Here is a brief summary of what we've got so far:
- Comprehensive collection of international results, appearances and scorers
- A fast growing collection of Australian representative matches, including State of Origin (Men's and Women's), Interstate Matches, City vs Country etc
- A full archive of NSWRFL/NSWRL/ARL/SL/NRL results including scorers, ladders and team squads from 1908, and appearances from 1980 onwards
- A very fast growing archive of English league and cup results, with full league appearances from 1980/81 onwards (1994/95 and 1995/96 excluded), as well as every scoreline from every cup game ever played!
There is also plenty more information we are working towards adding:
- Every Full International ever played in both the Men's and Women's game
- Results from Queensland club competitions (BRL + QRL), plus results and competitions from NSW Country RL
- Full history of European Cup matches
- NSWRL appearances prior to 1980 (1908-1963 and 1974-1979 now completed - view progress)
- All English league and cup results, ladders, squads, scorers and appearances from all professional divisions dating back to 1895
- Lower grade results from the NSW and QLD Cups and even Reserve Grade games dating back to 1908
- Every NRLW and Women's Super League game ever played, in full detail
We now also produce our very own Rugby League yearbook, in conjunction with the League Unlimited website, which you can view or download for free.
Finally, we have a Patreon page where you can contribute to our efforts with a monthly donation. All help is immensely appreciated, and our active Patrons get early access to our yearbook a week before it's released to the public.
Contributors
Shawn Dollin
Follow Shawn on Twitter (@azkatro)
This site started out as a small idea I had in 2005 that quickly got out of hand, and was inspired by other great resources like Cricinfo and Paul Jeffs' RL Tables. While Rugby League Project was hardly an original idea, it has become a source of pride for me to be able to say I started something that the global rugby league community is able to benefit and enjoyment from in some way. I've continued to develop and evolve the site to face new challenges, but have always tried to remain true to the original intent, which is to provide accurate, detailed information that's easily accessible, fast and free for all.
However, it wouldn't be anywhere near the resource it has grown into without the support of the endless supply of passionate, dedicated rugby league fans around the world who kindly write to us every day (and have in the past been forced to wait months for me to get around to replying!), but not least of all Andrew Ferguson whose outstanding dedication to the cause has continued to provide me with new inspiration and drive to keep going no matter how unlikely the challenges we face might be.
Andrew Ferguson
Follow Andrew on Twitter (@andrewrlp)
I had been involved in a number of different roles providing statistical and historical data on Rugby League to other resources prior to my involvement with RLP. I was working on creating my own in-depth Rugby League book looking at compiling all Rugby League club records in Australia with in-depth details on Finals games, all rep matches (city v country and interstate games) as well as summaries of all tours and test matches played by all international sides. I had made it to season 1939 (I remember it well because of the 33-4 thrashing Balmain dished out to Souths in the final that year) when I opted to look for more information online and came across RLP.
In 2008, I contacted Shawn and informed him that I had plenty of info and would love to help him with the site. Shawn, being a smart man, realised someone was happy to enter in huge chunks of data for the fun of it and agreed to let me help him.
Bill Bates
Follow Bill on Twitter (@StattoMan)
Bill is a St Helens man who is also involved with one of our favourite organisations, the Saints Heritage Society. Bill has already provided us with thousands of results to date and is continuing to compile a fantastic archive of English club results (league and cup) for the site. He is no doubt working hard on compiling more for the site as you read this!
Tim Costello
Follow Tim on Twitter (@TimothyJ_23)
Tim is a part of the League Unlimited team and has been a long time friend of RLP. He works with Andrew to produce the yearly annual publication. Tim is the magician who takes all the words and numbers that get thrown at him and turns them into something that's an absolute pleasure to read. He has recently become a valuable and active member of the RLP team, helping with entering and checking new results as they come in.
Paul Jeffs
Paul is the founder of what has always been the go-to resource for Australian rugby league results, RL Tables. Without his site and immense individual contributions to Rugby League Project, the NSWRL section would be extremely threadbare.
Paul Carter
Paul is easily our most prolific contributor via the comments page. He tirelessly provides us with excellent information thanks to what is no doubt a very impressive archive of rugby league periodicals. He has literally provided us with thousands of corrections and additions, each of which are more valuable than the last.
Greg Fiveash
Follow Greg on Twitter (@RLProgrammeMan)
I've been passionate Rugby League fan for 40 years and a collector of the Big League programme, I first began collecting Big League in 1975 and religiously pick up a copy every week also collecting various books on Rugby League history through the years. In the early 2000s I decided to starting accumulating as many NSWRL programmes as I could and this has led to collecting huge amounts of data on Rugby League mainly the NSWRL. I have built up my programme collection to include every Rugby League News & Big League programme since 1925 so I'm still after anything prior to that including the match day card programmes and Rugby League News that started in 1920.
I first came across Rugby League Project in mid-2009 when Andrew contacted me about providing details of NSW v Qld matches that they were working on at the time I gave him all the info I could which mainly came from early EE Christensen Yearbooks. I had at that just time started compiling info to list all the teams for each NSWRL matched played, I now have all that info at hand and offered to help the guys out.
Derek Farrar
Derek is also an extremely eagle-eyed contributor and has provided us with hundreds of not only additional pieces of information, but also corrections which even the hardiest statisticians (including ourselves!) would miss, particularly related to English internationals. Sadly, Derek passed away in 2020. May he rest in peace.
Ian Golden
Follow Ian on Twitter (@Ian_Golden)
Ian is involved with Wales Rugby League and has done an incredible amount of work to get our Wales archive up to speed. He is not only a great contributor but also a great communicator, and made the arduous task of bringing our info on Wales to where it is today an absolute breeze.
Col Johnston
Col is a passionate devotee of the North Sydney Bears and strong campaigner for the Central Coast Bears, who are seeking admission into the NRL. He is a voluntary club Historian and Archivist for North Sydney.
Brian Keith
Brian is a very active contributor on our forums and has provided us with thousands of pieces of information, specialising particularly in British representative games and Great Britain tours.
Max Turner
Max has been a huge help to us in improving on the finer details of our information. With his assistance, much of our data is of higher quality.
AJ Lucantonio
Follow AJ on Twitter (@AJLucantonio)
AJ is a keen stats man who has been actively helping us on the forums for years. More recently, he has been a huge help in compiling information on Australian cup competitions, particularly the AMCO/Tooth/KB/Panasonic cup.
Roulette's Play
Follow Roulette on Twitter (@RoulettesPlay)
Rou is the incredibly talented graphic artist who pioneered our jersey template, and commenced the challenging task of creating the team jerseys you might have come across. This is a huge undertaking with plenty to do, but we already have a number of great looking jerseys thanks to her hard work:
