1920 NSWRFL Season

The thirteenth season of the NSWRFL premiership was contested by nine teams: Balmain, Eastern Suburbs, Glebe, Newtown, North Sydney, South Sydney, University, Western Suburbs and Annandale. It was a single round-robin with no finals series, the standard format used across most of the 1910s and 1920s before the finals system was introduced in 1926. Several rounds were disrupted because club players were required for representative matches connected with a touring Great Britain side; in one match Balmain's Frank Burge scored eight tries, a club record that stands to this day. Balmain finished clearly on top of the table and were declared premiers on a first-past-the-post basis; with Balmain's lead unassailable, the final rounds of the competition were left unplayed, which is why teams finished with uneven numbers of matches played (13 or 14) and no grand final was held. Sydney University, playing its debut NSWRFL season, endured a disastrous campaign, conceding 498 points in 13 games while winning only once, a harbinger of the club's generally difficult run through the 1920s and 1930s. Glebe and South Sydney tied for second on the ladder, while Eastern Suburbs, Newtown and North Sydney all tied for fifth. At season's end Annandale, who had endured a difficult decade since debuting in 1910 and won none of their thirteen matches in 1920, withdrew from the competition permanently and were replaced for 1921 by the newly formed St George club, which went on to become one of the code's most storied franchises.