The 1999 National Rugby League season was historic for many reasons. The
St. George Illawarra Dragons played their inaugural game after forming the League's first joint venture, losing 10–20 to the
Parramatta Eels. That game was the second of a double header, which was the first event to be held at Sydney's
Stadium Australia, the central venue for the
Olympic Games the following year. That game attracted a rugby league world record of 104,583 spectators. During the season, the members of the
Balmain Tigers and
Western Suburbs Magpies voted to form another joint venture, to be named the
Wests Tigers. After the conclusion of the season, the
South Sydney Rabbitohs and
North Sydney Bears were excluded from the premiership. The Bears would later form the game's third joint venture with the
Manly Warringah Sea Eagles to form the
Northern Eagles which later collapsed with the licence being revoked to Manly Warringah, whilst South Sydney would fight a successful two-year legal battle for reinclusion. In August the NRL's CEO
Neil Whittaker announced that he would resign at the end of the season. The defending premiers, Brisbane endured their worst ever start to a season, with just one win and a draw from their first ten games, however they would miraculously recover and record 11 wins in a row before hitting a few hurdles along the way, including a draw against Manly in round 24 and a loss against then-bogey team
Parramatta at home in round 25. Their champion
halfback and captain
Allan Langer retired mid-season as a result. The
Newcastle Knights also lost an iconic player when 1997 premiership captain
Paul Harragon retired mid-season due to a chronic knee injury. The
Melbourne Storm's premiership victory saw their captain
Glenn Lazarus become the only player to ever win grand finals for three clubs.
Cliff Lyons, making a comeback from retirement for the
Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, was the oldest player in the NRL in 1999.
Teams The exclusion of the
Adelaide Rams and
Gold Coast Chargers, and the joint venture of the
St. George Dragons and
Illawarra Steelers, saw a reduction in the League's teams from twenty to seventeen: the largest reduction in the number of teams in premiership history and the first reduction since the exclusion of Sydney's
Newtown Jets at the end of the
1983 season.
Advertising In a move that polarised some fans, the NRL in its 1999 promotional campaign focused on the game's grass roots supporters who perhaps had been overlooked and pained in the trauma of the
Super League war. Sydney advertising agency VCD, in the third year of their four-year tenure with the NRL, produced an advertisement featuring
Thomas Keneally reading his poem, "Ode to Rugby League", which had been commissioned by the NRL. It speaks of the innocent excitement that begins each season. The ad was used at season launch and there was minimal media budget to support it throughout the year. Keneally is a longtime supporter of the
Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles.
Ladder ==Finals series==