Rugby league changed in a big way in 1967 when Cronulla-Sutherland joined the competition.
It was also the year St George's run of 11 straight premierships ended.
Cronulla-Sutherland got off to a great start by winning their first game, against Eastern Suburbs, at the Sydney Sports Ground on April 2, 1967.
The Sun’s rugby league writer W F Corbett wrote: “Cronulla defeated a downcast Easts 1-56 before a crowd of 6,137”.
“Oldtimers tried to recall if any team in the past had won in their first premiership appearance, but could not call any to mind.”
Corbett wrote, after the game, coach Ken “Killer” Kearney “held court to many dressing room visitors congratulating the team”.
Cronulla-Sutherland also won their first home game against Parramatta, although the NSW Rugby League nearly moved the game because of the state of Sutherland Oval, where the Sharks played until mid 1968 before moving to Woolooware.
League secretary Ken Stephen said Sutherland Oval was not up to standard, it had big bare patches at each end and “they have no facilities whatsoever”.
“The ground itself is exceptionally hard and I feel more than one broken bone could result when two first grade sides clash,” he said.
The game went ahead only after a plea by Cronulla secretary Arthur Winn.
The new club chalked up three wins and a draw in its first season, but, by 1973, was into its first grand final.
Gary Lester, in his book, The Sharks: Colour Me Black, White and Blue, said the club’s first secretary Kevin McSweyn credited Ken Kearney with calling the club the Sharks.
“Alf Clarkson was president in 1967 and he suggested that we should be the Lions after the British Lions,” McSweyn told Lester.
“I was talking to ‘Killer’ about it and we weren’t happy with the Lions.
“He said, ‘We want something more ferocious...why not a shark?
“So, we sat down trying to design a shark emblem. It was pretty awful.
“I rang Tom Goodman at the Herald and asked him would he mind referring to us as the Cronulla Sharks.
“The following week he wrote, ‘the self-styled Sharks’. And so from that moment we were the Sharks.”