1913 Auckland Rugby League season

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The 1913 Auckland Rugby League season was the fifth season of the competition. The first‑grade started on May 3 with the same six clubs as 1912, but Manukau Rovers withdrew partway through the season because they couldn’t field a full side. Eden Ramblers also pulled out during the year. North Shore Albions won the first‑grade title for the club’s first time.

Lower grades included Otahuhu, Northcote Ramblers (now the Northcote Tigers), and Ellerslie Wanderers (later known as the Ellerslie Eagles). A notable non‑grade match was Avondale vs New Lynn in Avondale on September 13, won by New Lynn 23–8.

Key debuts and players
- Karl Ifwersen switched from rugby union to league and debuted for North Shore Albions. He would go on to a remarkable career in both rugby league and rugby union.
- George Cook debuted for Newton Rangers in the same game.
- Jim Clark debuted for Ponsonby and scored in their win over Eden.
- Bertram Denyer scored Eden’s only try in their loss; he later joined Newton Rangers.
- Samuel Houghton played for Ponsonby and later played for England in a tour match the following year.
- R. Clark (Newton) scored five tries early in his career.
- Don Kenealy did not take the field for Eden in a match due to unspecified reasons, and Eden soon left the competition.
- There were a few other notable player movements between clubs during the season.

Disciplinary and administrative notes
- In a Ponsonby vs Manukau match in Onehunga, Charles Savory was accused of kicking an opponent. Although the referee didn’t see it, an Auckland Rugby League official claimed to have witnessed the incident and Savory was banned for life. Savory had been picked for New Zealand’s tour of Australia, so the ban prevented him from touring. The New Zealand League did not find the evidence sufficient to uphold the penalty, so Auckland League struck Savory off their list of registered players, making him ineligible to play in Auckland. This led to a tense meeting when selector Ronald MacDonald faced questions about why Savory had been chosen to play against Wellington; MacDonald defended his selection, and in the end he was removed as selector with Angus Campbell becoming the new selector and Morgan Hayward replacing Savory in the next Auckland match.
- In May, tragedy struck in a third‑grade Ellerslie vs Ponsonby match. 26‑year‑old Adolphus Theodore Bust was severely injured and died the next morning. The coroner found no one at fault. Ellerslie clubs did not play the following weekend out of respect, and the league paid the funeral costs.

Season results
- Eighteen regular‑season matches were played before the champions were decided. North Shore Albions finished with five wins, one draw, and one loss.
- Including knockout games, there were 21 first‑grade games with 103 tries, 50 conversions, 22 penalties, 3 drop goals, and 1 goal from a mark. The average score per game was about 22 points, with roughly 4.9 tries per game. Conversions were successful about half the time (roughly 49%).

Season highlights and finals
- North Shore Albions were the top team in the league and became champions for the first time.
- After the league, a knockout competition was played among four remaining teams. Newton and City advanced to the final, and Ponsonby joined the final lineup after Manukau’s senior team had disbanded. Ponsonby defeated City Rovers 16–5 in the final on August 9 to win the knockout crown.

Representative season
- The Auckland representative team played ten matches, winning seven and losing three. The losses came against the touring New South Wales side and in end‑of‑season tours to Taranaki and Wellington. Angus Campbell was the team selector.
- The representative schedule included matches against regional teams such as Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, Nelson, Canterbury, and Wellington, plus an exhibition match in Pukekohe against the Auckland club champions North Shore Albions.

Thacker Shield
- North Shore Albions travelled to Christchurch on September 7 to challenge for the Thacker Shield against Sydenham. The shield had been opened to competition from any New Zealand club, but North Shore’s squad was missing some players who were with New Zealand on tour.

Notes
- Records from the season are incomplete in places, with some scorers not always named in match reports.
- The year was busy and eventful, with a mix of on‑field drama, notable debuts, a national representative effort, and a solemn tragedy that affected the league community.