Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs

The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Belmore, a suburb in the Canterbury-Bankstown region of Sydney. They compete in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership, as well as New South Wales Rugby League junior competitions.

The club was admitted to the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership, predecessor of the current NRL competition, in 1935. They won their first premiership in their fourthth year of competition with another soon after, and after spending the 1950s and most of the 1960s on the lower rungs went through a very strong period in the 1980s, winning four premierships in that decade.

Known briefly in the 1990s as the Sydney Bulldogs, as a result of the Super League war the club competed in that competition in 1997 before changing their name to the geographically indistinct Bulldogs and continuing to play every season of the re-unified NRL, winning their most recent premiership in 2004. In 2012 the Bulldogs won the minor premiership, but lost to the Melbourne Storm 14–4 in the Grand Final. In 2014 they were in the Grand Finals against Rabbitohs but lost 30-6.

Bulldog

The Bulldog is a medium-sized breed of dog commonly referred to as the English Bulldog or British Bulldog. Other Bulldog breeds include the American Bulldog, Old English Bulldog (now extinct), Leavitt Bulldog, Olde English Bulldogge, and the French Bulldog. The Bulldog is a muscular, heavy dog with a wrinkled face and a distinctive pushed-in nose. The American Kennel Club (AKC), The Kennel Club (UK), and the United Kennel Club (UKC) oversee breeding standards. Bulldogs are the 5th most popular purebreed in the United States in 2013 according to the American Kennel Club.

Description

Appearance

The Bulldog is a breed with characteristically wide head and shoulders along with a pronounced mandibular prognathism. There are generally thick folds of skin on a Bulldog's brow; round, black, wide-set eyes; a short muzzle with characteristic folds called a knot above the nose; hanging skin under the neck; drooping lips and pointed teeth, and occasionally an underbite. The coat is short, flat, and sleek, with colours of red, fawn, white, brindle, and piebald.

Wests Tigers

The Wests Tigers are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Sydney's Inner West. They have competed in the National Rugby League since they were formed at the end of the 1999 NRL season as a joint-venture club between the Balmain Tigers and the Western Suburbs Magpies.

The Wests Tigers started playing in the 2000 NRL season and won their maiden premiership in 2005. The club also won the World Sevens in 2004.

The Wests Tigers have three home grounds: Leichhardt Oval (the home ground of Balmain), Campbelltown Stadium (the home ground of Western Suburbs) and ANZ Stadium as of 2014. They are currently coached by Jason Taylor and captained by Aaron Woods. The club CEO is Justin Pascoe and the general manager is Phil Moss.

History

Background

In Australia, the game of rugby league began in 1908, the New South Wales Rugby League premiership (NSWRL) had nine teams from the Sydney, Australia area. Two of those teams were clubs based in Balmain and the Western Suburbs who happen to meet each other in the in round 1 of 1908 Balmain went on to win 24 to 0. The Balmain club, who later adopted a Tiger as their emblem, in their tenure in the NSWRL won eleven premierships in twenty grand finals and was one of the forces in the NSWRL competition. However their last premiership success was in 1969 and in the 1990s with many new clubs being established, there was pressure on clubs to perform to survive in the first grade competition in Australia. The Wests Tigers got their name from their suburb and from their logo.