First Grade, Second Grade, Third Grade, Womens Tackle, Womens Tag, Girls Tag, Under 18, Under 17, Under 16, Under 15, Under 14, Under 13, Under 12, Under 11, Under 6-10
NRL Victoria (abbreviated as NRLVic, and formerly the Victorian Rugby League) is responsible for administering the game of rugby league in Victoria, Australia. Victoria is an Affiliated State of the overall Australian governing body the National Rugby League. The VRL commenced in 1952 and has been running each year since.
Prior to 2013 NRL Victoria was known as the Victorian Rugby League before the NRL completed a full rebranding exercise and renamed all affiliate states.
Over the years the VRL have produced a number of juniors for the Melbourne Storm, SG Ball, NYC and NRL teams.
Rugby League Centre of Excellence
NRL Victoria is currently headquartered at Victoria's Rugby League Centre of Excellence at Seabrook Reserve in Broadmeadows, which also serves as the administration base for Touch Football Victoria and as the home ground for Northern Thunder. Construction commenced in 2021 and was completed in 2023, at the cost of $16.9 million.[1] The facility additionally serves as a hub for rugby league programs and a venue for training, camps and state and national level tournaments, and is also set to serve as the home ground of any future Melbourne Storm NRL W team.[2][3] Features of the facility include a show pitch, three community access competition pitches, a female-friendly pavilion including high-performance training and recovery facilities, and car parking.[4][5][6]
The Melbourne Rugby League has been running since the 1950s. RAAF Ballarat were the inaugural premiers with the Waverley Oakleigh Panthers being the most recent in 2023. The competition was rebranded in 2022 to become the Storm Premiership, aligning with the strong Storm identity for Rugby League in Victoria.
The Murray Cup is a rugby league competition on the border of Victoria and New South Wales. Initially the competition was established in 1998 as the Goulburn Murray Rugby League by the Country Rugby League and the Victorian Rugby League. The league was disbanded in 2009 before being re-established as the Murray Cup in 2015. As of 2022 there is a competition for both Senior Men's and Women's Tag football.[8]
Current Clubs
There are currently seven clubs affiliated with the Murray Cup competition.
The Central Highlands Rugby League (Victoria)|Central Highlands Rugby League (CHRL)]] was a rugby league competition in western Victoria. It covered an area centred on Ballarat, stretching north to Creswick, south to Warrnambool, east to Bacchus Marsh, and west to Horsham.
The CHRL competition started with two junior age levels but in 2008 due to the 11-year drought finally taking its toll on Central Victoria the council deemed the sports grounds used in the competition too dangerous for use. This temporarily ended competition for the CHRL (and some clubs in other sports too). After another two years of the fields not being used the councils re-allocated the fields to other purposes, ending the ability for clubs in the CHRL to continue until new home grounds are established.
