Jamie Parsons
Not too long after the town of Rankins Springs upped and moved itself 10km down the road from its original location at the old pub near a freshwater spring to get closer to the new railway, the local townspeople and farmers decided we better get something to do.
In 1925 and 1926, the same time as schools were opening in Rankins Springs and nearby Erigolia, and a tennis club, a cricket club and an Aussie Rules club were formed, the Rankins Springs Rugby League Football Club played their first game on 15 May 2026.
First led by President Mr S. Bender and Secretary Mr O. Day, the club decided to play in royal blue and gold, and ran out to play Sims Gap, only to lose by one point. The soon-to-be-called Dragons have had the last laugh, however, as they are about to celebrate their 100th anniversary on Saturday.
Despite the fortunes of the town and it’s surrounds going up-and-down and back-and-forth throughout its 103 years, one word that best describes the club and the town is resilience with a capital R. With the town going through economic hardship, wars, droughts, business closures, population decline and pub fires, the club has ridden the waves and had its own share of foldings, shortages and sadness.
However harsh the times have been, the club and the community have come through the other side through the strength and hard work of its people. And while the Aussie Rules club failed, the cricket club was lost for many years (though it’s seen a recent comeback!), and basketball is no longer around, Rugby League has been kept alive in The Springs despite several pauses.
The club first kept itself alive through community dances, which would raise about 3 or 4 pounds. It didn’t last too long though, with the club first folding in July 1926, two months after it was established. In August 1926, the club returned, which would prove a common theme over the next 100 years.
In the pre-Group 17 era, the club, sometimes called the ‘Rainbows’, would challenge nearby towns, such as Weethalle, Tallimba, Erigolia and Merriwagga, for Challenge Cups donated by local families, such as the Tooth Cup, the Beaumont Cup and the Walton Shield.
The club joined the re-zoned Group 17 competition in 1950, becoming part of Zone 2 and winning their first premiership in 1953 under the coaching of Clarrie Wood, defeating Merriwagga, which now counts as the first of several Grand Final victories against the merged Goolgowi-Merriwagga RLFC, as they claim themselves to be.
Rebranding themselves the next year as a red-and-white team, wearing a white jersey with a Red V, the town would soon become synonymous with the Dragons, as ‘The Springs’ entered a period of prosperity, with new churches, a new hall, a golf club and basketball competition springing up.
The Dragons would go on to win another Zone 2 premiership in 1962, defeating Darlington Point, who later had to merge with Coleambally and join another competition.
The Dragons folded in 1971 and were lost in the wilderness for five years. In 1976, some bright-eyed volunteers, including local copper Les Bulluss, Garry Lamont and Maurice Hewitt fought the Dragons’ case at the Group 17 meeting and were re-admitted to the competition in reserve grade with Peter Martin as coach, later returning to first grade in 1977. It wasn’t long before coaches Kerry Gallagher and later, Garb Saunders had the club back in Grand Finals, but success was a while away yet.
In 1991, the club lifted the Reserve Grade premiership defeating Weethalle, who folded the next season and many of their players subsequently moved to play for the Dragons.
In 1993, the First Grade premiership finally came, with Stuart ‘Boots’ Vearing leading the team to a 34-16 victory over Hay. The club also won the Reserve Grade premiership that year, and later the Clayton Cup.
The club made the Grand Final in nine of the last 17 years in Group 15, further winning firsts and reserves in 1997, where Chris Richards made every opposition side look foolish, and firsts again in 2000.
The millennium drought took its toll on the town and by extension the club, reserve grade folding in 2001 and first grade in 2004, but the team returned to fight on in 2005-06, before Group 17 went into hiatus in 2007.
In 2018, five of the smallest Rugby League clubs in the state, together with Narrandera, created the Proten Community Cup. The Dragons were alive again under the leadership of Brent Parsons, Jamie Parsons, Andrew Streat and Wally Lamont and in the eight years since have brought people both old and new back to the community.
They won the first Proten Cup premiership, defeating Goolgowi-Merriwagga, and completed a fairy tale comeback story in 2021, starting the year at 0-3 before winning six straight games, including a 93-minute golden point Semi-final against Hillston and a 20-0 victory in the Preliminary Final over Barellan at Barellan.
They then defeated the unbeaten Minor Premiers Goolgowi-Merriwagga (who hadn’t lost in two seasons) in the Grand Final on home turf. They managed to repeat the feat against a Narrandera team, which also hadn’t lost in two seasons, in the 2024 Grand Final at Narrandera, coming back from 18-4 down at half-time. Along the way, the girls decided to get in on the fun, forming the ‘Dragonettes’ women’s team in 2021.
The Dragons will celebrate 100 years on Saturday, remembering 100 years of fun, victory, mateship, pain, heartbreak, nonsense and love. But in that they will know it would never have got to this point without the hard work, stress and dedication of those who have given their all for the red-and-white (and blue-and-gold), those who have spent hard-earned money keeping the club alive, those who have stayed up nights, done the paperwork, drove the buses and turned up in the heat, rain and frost to put training on for the boys and girls.
For those in the early days, the glory days and now. The grandfathers who ran the club on chook raffles and bindi-covered fields, and their grandchildren dealing with social media and PPIS points, the Dragons have stayed alive on volunteers and dedication, to continue standing proudly as one of the smallest communities to field a Rugby League side in the country.
The Rankins Springs Dragons RLFC will be held this Saturday 14 March at the War Memorial Hall from 5pm. It’s been a great 100 years for the Dragons, and here’s to another hundred.
