Brisbane Battlers Trivia Quiz

Answer: Rugby union

The Queensland Reds were founded in 1882 as the team to represent Queensland in competition against other states in rugby union. When the game became a professional sport in 1996, they were one of the 12 teams from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand that formed the Super 12 competition. As more teams were added over the years, the name of the competition changed several times before settling on Super Rugby, which will not need adjustment as membership changes. The competition has included teams from the original three countries, as well as from Japan and Argentina.

Famous rugby union players hailing from Brisbane include the legendary John Eales, who played for the Queensland Reds when he was not busy captaining Australia.

Answer: Football (soccer)

Founded in 1957, the Roar are the oldest team in what is the highest-level Australian domestic competition for football (soccer), the A-League. Their original club name was Hollandia-Inala; this was followed by Brisbane Lions in the mid-1970s, when clubs were told to change from names suggesting affiliation with specific ethnic groups.

After playing under that name in several different competitions, they joined the A-League when it was set up in 2005, changing name again to Queensland Roar, and then to Brisbane Roar in 2008.

The club has an affiliated women's team, too - they compete in the W-League.

Answer: Water polo

Brisbane Barracudas were founded in 1963, and compete in the National Water Polo League, which was established in 1990, with a women's division added in 2004. All clubs in the competition since 2004 must have a men's team and a women's team. There is a second team based in Brisbane, the Queensland Breakers, established in 2003 as part of the expansion of the league.

Answer: Basketball

The Brisbane Bullets were founded in 1979, one of the ten original teams in the National Basketball League, and competed until 2008, when financial woes led them to surrender their team license. The club was revived in 2017. The competition has included teams from Singapore and New Zealand.

Answer: Rugby league

The Brisbane Broncos Rugby League Football Club Ltd., usually just called the Broncos, were founded in 1988, and play in the National Rugby League. In terms of paid attendance at matches, rugby league is far and away the most popular team sport in Brisbane, and their team's success over the years plays a significant part in that popularity, as does the success of the state team in the rivalry called State of Origin, in which Queensland Maroons and New South Wales Blues compete a best-of-three series each year. Players represent the state in which they played their first senior game, no matter where they were born , or where they were playing when selected.

The first State of Origin match was played in Brisbane in 1980, with the Maroons winning 20-10. One of the participants in that match was Wally Lewis, who would go on to represent Queensland in another 30 State of Origin matches, many of them as the team captain.

He played for the Broncos from 1988 to 1990.

Answer: Australian rules football

Australian rules football originated in Victoria, before expanding to have teams in other states, starting in the 1980s. The first team in Queensland was the Brisbane Bears, formed in 1987. In 1996 the Bears merged with the financially-struggling Victorian team Fitzroy Lions, to become the Brisbane Lions.

They were initially one of the most successful of all the expansion teams, despite their location in rugby league heartland. They won the AFL competition three years in a row, 2001-02-03.

Answer: Netball

The Queensland Firebirds formed in 1997 as one of the foundation teams of the competition known as the Commonwealth Bank Trophy. The game of netball has had several different competitive structures since then, but throughout the Firebirds have been one of the teams in the top level of competition available.

The Commonwealth Bank Trophy (2008-2016) had teams from both Australia and New Zealand. The Firebirds won three titles during that time, including the final one in 2016. They then became a part of Super Netball from the start of 2017.

Answer: Baseball

The Brisbane Bandits are the second team of this name to compete in the Australian Baseball League, but has no connection to the team that played from 1989 to 1999 in an earlier version of the ABL. The team was set up in 2010 as one of the six teams establishing a new ABL.

This league was set up as a joint venture by Major League Baseball (who use it as an off-season training ground for prospective players to develop their skills) and the Australian Baseball Federation. The Brisbane Bandits won its first title (which leads to the award of the Claxton shield) in 2016.

Answer: Cricket

Brisbane Heat compete in the Big Bash League, a T20 competition that was set up in 2011. The men in teal won the competition in the second season, but were wooden spooners two years later. In 2015 a women's Heat team was one of the original teams in the Women's Big Bash League, a competition they won two years in a row, 2019 and 2020.

In the longer form of the game, the Queensland Bulls are based in Brisbane in the first-class and one-day competitions. The Queensland Fire compete in the Women's National Cricket League. The Brisbane Cricket Ground was the site of the first-ever tied game of Test Cricket. Cricket usually results in a win for one team or a draw (when the game finishes before both teams have had a chance to bat out their two innings). It is very unusual for a game to finish with the team batting last losing their last wicket when the scores are exactly level, but that's what happened on 14 December 1960, in a test match between Australia and West Indies.

Answer: Field hockey

With the establishment of a new domestic competition called Hockey One in 2019, the Brisbane Blaze was set up, with both a men's and a women's team. The women won their competition, while the men were runners-up. In the Australian Hockey League, which ended in 2018, the men played as Queensland Blades, and the women as Queensland Scorchers.
(In case you were wondering, Australia does have an ice hockey league, but it is amateur, and there are no teams located as far north as Brisbane.)