City money and the boys from the bush : country rugby league in New South Wales - a political economy of immiseration

Within a decade of the establishment of a Sydney-based competition, rugby league had spread to many regional districts of New South Wales (NSW). By the time of the Great Depression, country districts organised. Although the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) had formed a country division in 1934, the Country Rugby League (CRL) was not founded officially until 1939 when the NSWRL gave country officials the power to administer the game beyond the Sydney metropolitan area. Nonetheless, the CRL remained under the authority of its Sydney-based parent organisation.