1915 NSWRFL Season

The premiership continued uninterrupted through World War I with the same eight clubs. The League suffered a wartime loss when its first full-time secretary, Edward Larkin, was killed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. Balmain went through the season undefeated in matches won (12-2-0) to finish minor premiers, two points clear of Glebe (12-0-2), and under the first-past-the-post rule in force from 1912 to 1925 were automatically declared premiers, their first title, with no finals fixture required; the premiership was assured by their close last-round 7-4 win over South Sydney. Balmain's celebrated 12-2 defeat of second-placed Glebe before 20,000 at the Sydney Sports Ground, sometimes described in later retellings as a Grand Final, was in fact a regular-season fixture played with four rounds still remaining. Newtown finished a comfortable third on 19 points with a 9-1-4 record, and South Sydney rounded out the top four. Western Suburbs and North Sydney tied for the wooden spoon on 4 points, with North Sydney conceding a league-worst 353 points across the fourteen-round season, more than double the tally shipped by any other club. Annandale, in its sixth season in the top grade, finished sixth with a 3-0-11 record, continuing the pattern of struggle that would eventually see the club withdraw from the competition after 1920.