Balmain Tigers 15–14 Manly-Warringah — Preliminary Final, 1969 NRL Finals Series
13 Sep 1969 · Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney, NSW · Attendance: 41,410
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
Preliminary Final, 1969 NRL finals series: Balmain Tigers 15–14 Manly-Warringah, at Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney, NSW on 13 Sep 1969.
Sourcing caveat: Rugby League Project's own two pages for this match disagree: the individual match-detail page's narrative states George Ruebner scored 2 tries for Balmain (which would total 18 points, not the recorded 15), while the round-summary page lists only a single Ruebner try. The single-try version is used here because it is the one that reconciles exactly with the recorded score and is corroborated by the separate round-summary page -- the 'match-detail page' claim appears to be an error in that page's own auto-generated summary, flagged rather than silently resolved.
Scorers
| Balmain Tigers | Tries: George Ruebner Goals: Len Killeen (4/9) Drop goals: Dave Bolton (2) |
| Manly-Warringah | Tries: Danny Gough (2) Goals: Bob Batty (4/11) |
Team sheets
| Balmain Tigers | Manly-Warringah | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bob Smithies | Fullback | Bob Batty | 1 |
| 2 | Paul Cross | Wing | Danny Gough | 2 |
| 3 | George Ruebner | Centre | John McDonald | 3 |
| 4 | Terry Parker | Centre | Alec Tennant | 4 |
| 5 | Len Killeen | Wing | Les Hanigan | 5 |
| 6 | Keith Outten | Five-Eighth | Bob Fulton | 6 |
| 7 | Dave Bolton (c) | Halfback | Frank Stanton | 7 |
| 8 | John Spencer | Lock | Rob Cameron | 8 |
| 9 | Joe Walsh | Second Row | John Morgan | 9 |
| 10 | Greg Fryer | Second Row | Peter Peters | 10 |
| 11 | Barry McTaggart | Prop | Allan Thomson | 11 |
| 12 | John Crawford | Hooker | Fred Jones (c) | 12 |
| 13 | Garry Leo | Prop | Bill Hamilton | 13 |
| Substitutes | ||||
| 15 | Kevin Bowrey | Bill Bradstreet | 16 | |
| 32 | Peter Boulton | |||
| Leo Nosworthy | Coach | George Hunter | ||
Match officials
| Referee | Keith Page |
Match report
13 Sep 1969, SCG. Halftime: Manly 7-4. Peter Boulton replaced injured John Crawford in the first half for Balmain; Kevin Bowrey replaced Keith Outten at halftime (concussion); Bill Bradstreet replaced Allan Thomson at halftime for Manly (hamstring), with positional reshuffling.