Aiden Tolman

Aiden Tolman is an Australian professional rugby league footballer who currently plays for the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs in the NRL. He previously played for the Melbourne Storm. He primarily plays prop.

Early years

While attending St Paul's College, Kempsey in 2006, Tolman was selected to play for the Australian Schoolboys team. He has also played for the Junior Kangaroos.

Tolman played his junior football with the Smithtown Tigers and he has also played for the Central Coast Storm and the Queensland Cup side, Norths Devils.

Playing career

Tolman made his first-grade debut against the Canberra Raiders in round 6 of the 2008 season. He has been compared to former Melbourne Storm player Robbie Kearns. In 2008 he was named the Melbourne Storm rookie of the year.

He played in the 2009 premiership against Parramatta.

On 18 May 2010, he signed for the Canterbury Bulldogs for 3 years.

References

External links

Grand final

A Grand final is a game that decides a sports league's championship (or premiership) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Synonymous with a championship game in North American sports, grand finals have become a significant part of Australian culture. The earliest competitions to feature a Grand final were Australia's AFL (Australian rules football) and NRL (rugby league football). They influenced other competitions such as soccer's A-League, the National Basketball League, netball's ANZ Championship and European rugby league's Super League to adopt grand finals as well. Most grand finals involve a prestigious award for the player voted best on field.

History

The Anglo-Norman term "grand" to describe a sporting event, documented in England as "grand match" in 1836, was used in Australia from the 1850s. A steeplechase in England has been called the "Grand National Steeple Chase" ("Grand National" alone for short) since at least 1839.

Use of the term in Australian Football dates back to the first organised and widely publicised match between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College on August 7, 1858 at Yarra Park, Melbourne (formerly Richmond Park). The game was advertised as the "grand football match" in the Melbourne Morning Herald and several other local newspapers.

Cameron Smith

Cameron Smith (born 18 June 1983) is an Australian professional rugby league footballer who currently captains the Australian national team, the Queensland State of Origin team, as well as his National Rugby League club, the Melbourne Storm. A goal-kicking hooker, he has played his whole NRL career to date with the Storm with whom he won the 2006 Dally M Medal and the 2007, 2009 and 2012 NRL Grand Finals. In 2007 Smith was awarded the Golden Boot Award as the world's best international player and he captained Australia to victory in the 2013 World Cup.

Early life

Born 18 June 1983 in Brisbane, Queensland, as a youth Smith was hooker for the Logan Brothers Junior Rugby League Club, Logan City. There he attended Marsden State High School. After scoring 188 points for the Norths Devils in the Queensland Cup he moved up to the NRL with the Melbourne Storm club.

NRL career

2000s

Smith's first two games for Melbourne were during the 2002 NRL season, both played at half-back. The following year he played as the Storm's hooker. In 2003 the Queensland rugby league team were without a specialist hooker. After experimenting with different players in the position for the first two matches of the 2003 State of Origin series and losing both, Smith was named at hooker for the third match (and for the next six years no other player would wear the number 9 for the Maroons until this run of 19 consecutive Origins was cut due to injury). He was named the Melbourne Storm's rookie of the year in 2003.

NRL Grand Final

The NRL Grand Final which determines the season's premiers, is one of Australia's major sporting events and is one of the largest attended club championship events in the world. Since 1999 it has been contested at Sydney's Stadium Australia, which was the primary athletics venue for the 2000 Olympic Games. The first year it was held at Stadium Australia, the NRL Grand Final broke the record for attendance at an Australian rugby league game, with 107,999 people attending.

The Grand Final had traditionally been played on Sunday afternoons until 2000, the following year saw the game shifted to an evening start. From 2008, a compromise was reached between official broadcaster Nine Network's preferred starting time of 7 pm and the traditional starting time of 3 pm, with the Grand Final beginning at 5 pm AEST. In 2013 the evening start resumed, the match commencing at 7:15 pm. The 2015 edition will be contested by two Queensland teams for the first time in history, with the Brisbane Broncos and North Queensland Cowboys competing.

Rugby league

Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, or simply league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 as a split from the Rugby Football Union over the issue of payments to players. Its rules gradually changed with the purpose of producing a faster, more entertaining game for spectators. It has been cited as the toughest, most physically demanding of team sports.

In rugby league, points are scored by carrying the ball and touching it to the ground beyond the opposing team's goal line; this is called a try, and is the primary method of scoring. The opposing team attempts to stop the attacking side scoring points by tackling the player carrying the ball. In addition to tries, points can be scored by kicking goals. After each try, the scoring team gains a free kick to try at goal with a conversion for further points. Kicks at goal may also be awarded for penalties, and field goals can be attempted at any time.