Cumberland Formed and added as 9th Team

21st April 1908

On the night of 21 April 1908 at Horse and Jockey Hotel, Homebush, the night after the first round of rugby league was being held in the NSWRL premiership the 9th NSWRL team was formed. On that morning, a meeting was advertised for that night to discuss the formation of rugby league club in the Cumberland area. The meeting was attended by 23 annoyed members of the Western Suburbs Rugby Union Club who were asked to form a rugby league club under the name Central Cumberland. The NSW Rugby League were reluctant to admit a ninth team into the premiership and proposed they merge with nearby team Western Suburbs. However, the clubs involved declined so the NSW Rugby League agreed to allowing the Cumberland team to a trial match against Eastern Suburbs, as a preliminary game to the NSW verses New Zealand fixture on May 2. After the trial match, the NSW Rugby League was convinced of that they could be competitive. As the NSWRL premiership had already begun, the NSW Rugby League had to reformat the draw to include Cumberland, which meant increasing the number of teams from eight to nine. With their first match schedule for May 9 against South Sydney.

In rugby the Cumberland region was playing within the Western Suburbs Rugby district. So rather than choosing to wear the bottle green Western Suburbs rugby district colours, the team chose to wear the blue and gold hooped jersey of Sydney University Rugby club.