Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
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50 free NRL trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Rugby league in Australia began with a breakaway in 1907 and has never stopped arguing with itself since: a media war that split the game in two, clubs thrown out and fought back in through the courts, mergers that lasted three seasons, and a premiership that can crown a champion from four states, the national capital or across the Tasman. The NRL that emerged from the 1998 peace deal is now the biggest club competition in the sport. These 50 questions cover the competition's settled history rather than this week's ladder. They take in the 1908 origins and the clubs that have survived from them, the expansion sides and joint ventures, the grand finals remembered for comebacks, replays and record crowds, the salary cap scandals, the State of Origin rivalry and the rules that decide who is a Queenslander, plus the medals, trophies and Immortals that mark out the game's greats. Play it to see how much of the game's lore you really know, or print it as a round for a pub or club quiz night. Each answer comes with a short explanation and a detail worth repeating at the next game.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which NRL club's nickname was chosen by co-founder Barry Maranta because he supported an NFL team?
Brisbane Broncos
The Brisbane Broncos took their name from the Denver Broncos, a choice The Australian newspaper described as 'mystifyingly American'.
Q 02Which club beat Balmain in extra time in 1989 to become the first premiers from outside New South Wales?
Canberra Raiders
The Canberra Raiders trailed 14–2 before Steve Jackson's extra-time try sealed a 19–14 win that many still rate as the greatest grand final ever played.
Q 03Which club's four straight premierships from 2021 were the first such streak in 58 years?
Penrith Panthers
The Penrith Panthers' 2021–24 four-peat matched nothing seen since the 1960s, and the 2023 leg was won from 24–8 down with 18 minutes left.
Q 04By what scoreline did Manly beat Melbourne in the 2008 grand final, setting a record margin for a decider?
40–0
Manly's 40–0 win was the largest number of points ever scored against a team in a grand final, delivering the club's seventh premiership before 80,388 fans.
Q 05Which joint venture of Balmain and Western Suburbs won the premiership in its first ever finals series, in 2005?
Wests Tigers
The Wests Tigers' 2005 title, sealed 30–16 after Benji Marshall's behind-the-back flick pass to Pat Richards, made them the first joint venture to win a premiership.
Q 06Which club, admitted in 1995 under its home city's name, was the premiership's first team based outside Australia?
New Zealand Warriors
The New Zealand Warriors began as the Auckland Warriors, rebranding six years later, and won the 2002 minor premiership before losing that year's grand final.
Q 07Which Redcliffe-based club was granted the NRL's 17th licence in 2021 and began play in 2023?
Dolphins
The Dolphins beat two rival bids for the licence and then won their first three NRL matches in 2023, opening with a 28–18 victory.
Q 08In which year did the NRL first hold Magic Round, a full round played at a single Brisbane ground?
2019
Magic Round debuted in 2019, copying Super League's Magic Weekend, and drew 134,677 people across the weekend at Lang Park.
Q 09Which club won the 1999 NRL grand final in only its second season, before a world-record crowd of 107,999?
Melbourne Storm
The Melbourne Storm, founded in 1997 with players from folding Perth and Hunter clubs, won 20–18 thanks to a late penalty try and became the first Victorian premiers.
Q 10Which club finally won its first premiership in 2016, its 50th season, with a 14–12 grand final win?
Cronulla Sharks
The Cronulla Sharks had entered the competition in 1967 and lost three earlier deciders, including the 1997 Super League grand final, before the 2016 breakthrough.
Q 11Which club, the NRL's first joint venture, finished runner-up in its debut 1999 season?
St George Illawarra Dragons
St George Illawarra Dragons led 14–0 at half-time of that decider, then waited until a 32–8 win in 2010 for the joint venture's first premiership.
Q 12Since 2024 the NRL has opened its season with two Round 1 games at which Las Vegas venue?
Allegiant Stadium
Allegiant Stadium, home of the city's NFL franchise, has hosted Rugby League Las Vegas since 2024, an event the NRL created to grow the code in the United States.
Q 13Why was the 2021 NRL grand final played in Brisbane, the first time in NRL history it left Sydney?
Q 21Which Parramatta halfback received the inaugural Clive Churchill Medal as grand final man of the match?
Peter Sterling
Peter Sterling took the first medal, created after Clive Churchill's death in 1985; the award has since been handed out retrospectively back to 1954.
Q 22Which halfback, coached at club level by his father Ivan, won Clive Churchill Medals in 2021 and 2023?
Nathan Cleary
Nathan Cleary's 2023 medal came after he dragged his side back from a 16-point deficit with less than 20 minutes left, the biggest comeback in grand final history.
Q 23Which South Sydney forward won the 2014 Clive Churchill Medal while playing with a fractured cheekbone?
Sam Burgess
A COVID lockdown in NSW
A COVID lockdown in NSW forced the decider to Lang Park, where crowd limits capped attendance at 39,322, the first major grand final in Queensland since the 1997 Super League decider.
Q 14Which halfback became the first player to win the Dally M Medal four times, taking his fourth in 2015?
Johnathan Thurston
Johnathan Thurston's fourth Dally M came the same year his golden-point field goal decided the grand final, and he also became the first three-time Golden Boot winner.
Q 15Which hooker retired in 2021 as the only player to pass 400 NRL games, all of them for one Victorian club?
Cameron Smith
Cameron Smith finished on 430 games and also overtook Hazem El Masri's 2,418 points to become the competition's all-time leading scorer.
Q 16Which Queensland captain, nicknamed 'The Emperor of Lang Park', has a bronze statue at that ground's entrance?
Wally Lewis
Wally Lewis collected a record eight Origin man-of-the-match awards, and the statue was bestowed by QRL chairman Ron McAuliffe, the 'father of State of Origin'.
Q 17Which Newcastle halfback won the Dally M Medal three times, in 1998, 1999 and 2002?
Andrew Johns
Andrew Johns won the Dally M in 1998, 1999 and 2002 and was the first Immortal added in nine years, after the rules were changed to judge playing ability alone.
Q 18Which 35-year-old captained Queensland in the inaugural 1980 State of Origin match, a 20–10 win?
Arthur Beetson
Arthur Beetson, then playing for Parramatta, had earlier become the first Indigenous Australian to captain Australia in any sport and was later named the seventh Immortal.
Q 19How many competition points did the Canterbury Bulldogs forfeit in 2002 for systematic salary cap breaches?
37
All 37 points went, along with a $500,000 fine, after the NRL found the club had deliberately paid players beyond the cap across two seasons.
Q 20Which winger broke a 16-all deadlock seconds from full-time to win the 1997 ARL grand final for Newcastle?
Darren Albert
Darren Albert's try gave the Knights a 22–16 win over Manly and a first premiership, in a season when the club had stayed loyal to the ARL during the Super League war.
Sam Burgess suffered the injury in a head clash on the first tackle of a 30–6 win that ended South Sydney's 43-year premiership drought.
Q 24Which fullback kept his 2009 Clive Churchill Medal even after his club's premiership that year was stripped?
Billy Slater
Billy Slater's medal stands because the award goes to the individual, and he won it again in 2017, eight years after the first.
Q 25Which coach's grand final record stood at seven wins from eight after taking a second club to the 2010 NRL title?
Wayne Bennett
Wayne Bennett's six earlier grand final wins all came with the club he had coached from its 1988 debut season, and he later became the first coach of the competition's 17th team.
Q 26Which captain led New South Wales to its first State of Origin series win, in the 1985 decider at the SCG?
Steve Mortimer
Steve Mortimer's Blues won before 39,068 at the Sydney Cricket Ground, and the next year they completed the first Origin whitewash, 3–0.
Q 27Which rookie coach took a Queensland side without its Super League-aligned stars to a 3–0 Origin sweep in 1995?
Paul Vautin
Paul Vautin, a TV commentator nicknamed 'Fatty' with almost no coaching experience, made just one player change during the entire series.
Q 28After Queensland won the 1987 State of Origin series, a fourth game was staged in which American city?
Long Beach
Long Beach's Veterans Memorial Stadium drew 12,349 to a showcase match the Blues won 30–18, and the ARL later confirmed it counts as an official Origin game.
Q 29By what nickname, coined by Barry Muir, do Queenslanders deride the New South Wales Origin side?
Cockroaches
Cockroaches was Muir's label for the Blues, answered by Johnny Raper calling the Maroons 'Cane Toads', and both insults stuck.
Q 30From which year did State of Origin become a full best-of-three series, after two single-match experiments?
1982
1982 brought the first full Origin series, after the interest and money generated by the one-off 1980 and 1981 games convinced officials to play all three games under Origin rules.