Club History
The St Marys Rugby League Club evolved from the St Marys United Rugby Union Club in 1908 and is the oldest Rugby League Club in the Penrith District.
St Marys United RUFC would play Rugby Union on a Saturday and back up again on a Sunday and play Rugby League against teams from the Sydney Competition on the paddocks where the St Marys High School is situated today. Since those days the Club has played in many different competitions, from 1916 to 1925 the Club participated in the Lakerston Cup, from 1925 to 1947, they played in the Western Districts Rugby League Competition, winning their first C Grade Premiership in 1934 and again in 1944. Their first A Grade Premiership was won in the Western Districts Junior League Competition in 1945.
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In 1947 Parramatta entered the NSW Rugby League Competition and St Marys joined their Junior League, winning the A Grade Competition in 1957—1961—1962—1963 and 1965. They were also successful in winning the A Reserve Grade Competition in 1959 and again in 1964. Other successful teams were the D Grade, they won their first Premiership in 1957, and the F Grade won their Premiership in 1958 whilst the E Grade was successful in winning their competition in 1960.
In 1967 St Marys became part of the Penrith Junior Rugby League when Penrith was accepted into the NSW Rugby League Competition. In 1970 just 3 years later St Marys entered teams in the Sydney 2nd Division Competition which was renamed the Metropolitan Cup in 1974 but the competition folded in 1976, the same year the Club won the Metropolitan Cup 2nd Grade Premiership.
Because there was no Metropolitan Cup Competition in 1977 St Marys chose to enter teams in the Penrith Junior League winning their first ever A Grade Premiership in the Penrith Junior League the same year.
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In 1950 the Club was still based at their old oval, Victoria Park, but was advised by the Penrith City Council that it would be turning the oval into a Garden Park and there would be no room for the St Marys Rugby League Club. The Club had now to decide on its immediate future as it had no choice but to look for another venue to play Rugby League and found a site where the Target Shopping Centre is situated today.
The Club formed an Art Union to raise enough money to buy the property, with a Holden Car as first prize. A Society was formed and was called the St Marys Athletic and Sports Club for the running of the Art Union, which was very successful and allowed the Club to raise enough money to purchase the property. A Football field was built with volunteer labour, and with materials donated by the local businessmen, the first game being played there in mid 1957.
Whilst the Club could now boast that they owned its own football oval it had its draw backs. There was no sewerage available and all ground and building maintenance had to be carried out by volunteer workers. The local council weren’t able to assist as the land was private property so all costs had to be absorbed by the Club who’s only income came from raffles and funds raised at the local hotel by the Football Committee.
The Clubs future meant that they had to find a site for a Licensed Rugby league Club and started working to achieve that goal. In 1956 the dreams of many of the St Marys people came true, the present Club was incorporated by merging the both Leagues Club and Junior League into one body to be known as the St Marys Rugby League Football Club Ltd. Since then, on legal advice, the word football was deleted and the Club is now known as the St Marys Rugby League Club Ltd. Originally the Club was going to build its licensed premises where the Target Shopping Centre is located but was advised by the Club Solicitors to sell the property and seek a more suitable site. In 1980 the site was sold and after a lot of negotiating 30ha was purchased where the Club is situated today. The Club then applied for a liquor licence which was finally granted in March 1982.
The actual building was constructed by a company known as Rennat Construction in very quick time to allow the Club to open for trading on Melbourne Cup Day 1982. Twenty five years have passed and the Club has had several renovations done since but none as outstanding as the recent remodelling and extension, it is a credit to the Board and Management the way the Club has been remodelled for the comfort of the members.
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In 1991 the Club re-entered the Metropolitan Cup Competition again, which was reformed one year earlier, winning the First Grade Premierships in 1993—1994 and again in 2001, the Club was also successful in winning the 2nd Grade Premiership in 1995. The next year the Club decided that the Metropolitan Cup Competition had no direction; the competition was down to 7 teams and without any other teams interested in playing in the Metropolitan Cup Competition decided to withdraw its teams and concentrate on the Junior League.
Toward the end of the 1995 season the Board of Directors and Club Management decided that the Club was too big to rely solely on volunteers running the football side of things and appointed Doug Falconer, an ex player, committee person, coach and life member of the Club to the position of Rugby League Administrative Officer It was always a debatable question as to weather or not it would be a feasible proposition to build football fields on the Clubs land or lobby the Penrith City Council to build the fields, not only for the St Marys Club, but for the people of St Marys. Unfortunately the Penrith Council were unable to find funds available so the St Marys Rugby League Club took it upon themselves to build a state of the art Rugby League Stadium at the rear of the Club at a cost of $6.25m which was totally paid for by the Club, the Stadium was opened in January 2002.
In July 2002 the St Marys Rugby League Club Board of Directors felt that the Club was big enough to appoint a full time Coaching & Development Officer. Jim Jones, ex Penrith Panthers Development Office and First Grade player, was appointed to the position.
In 2003 the Club went in a new direction and joined the Penrith Panthers in a joint venture merging into one Club known as the St Marys/Penrith Cougars. Together they entered a team in the Jim Beam Cup and Premier League competition. The joint venture in the Jim Beam Cup only lasted until the end of the 2005 season with the Premier League venture finishing up a year later when the Club was forced to withdraw its support because of the massive increase in poker machine tax and smoking restrictions. In spite of that the Junior League continues to become stronger especially over the past 10 years winning a record 11 Premierships in 2004 and again in 2007 and 7 Premierships in 2008.
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