Sydney (NRC team)

Sydney (NRC team)
Sydney logo adopted 2019
UnionNSW Rugby [1]
Founded2007 (2007) (as Central Coast Rays)
re-formed as North Harbour
2014, Sydney 2016.
Disbanded2020 (competition disbanded)
LocationSydney, Australia
Ground(s)
(Capacity: 5,000)
Woollahra Oval
Coach(es)Chris Whitaker
Captain(s)Lalakai Foketi
League(s)National Rugby Championship
20188th
Team kit

Sydney is an Australian rugby union team that competed in the National Rugby Championship (NRC). Formerly known as Sydney Rays, the team is one of two sides from New South Wales in the competition; the other being the NSW Country Eagles.

The current team plays as the all-of-Sydney side in the NRC and wears the traditional blue and yellow colours of Sydney's representative rugby teams.[2] It draws on the metropolitan sides that have represented the city for more than a century.[2][3] In 2019 the NRC side adopted as its logo the anchor insignia of the Sydney Rugby Union, which dates back to at least 1970.[4]

The team was known as the North Harbour Rays before 2016. It was renamed Sydney during a consolidation which reduced the number of NRC teams in the city from three in 2014 to eventually just one by 2018.[2] The North Harbour Rays had been formed as consortium of four Sydney clubs; Gordon, Manly, Northern Suburbs, and Warringah in 2014.[5]

North Harbour took its identity from the Central Coast Rays side that played in the earlier national competition, the Australian Rugby Championship (ARC) in 2007. It had been backed by the same four Sydney clubs, along with the Central Coast Waves.[5]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference mckay-aug-2019 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference dt-6-jun-2018 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference st-1895 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference country-city-1970 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference rugbyweek-2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).