Club History

Uni-Norths Junior Rugby can trace its origins back to the Under 18s team fielded by the Northern Suburbs Rugby Union in the 1946 competition.  An under 17s team followed in 1947* and today we boast 17 teams across the Under 7s to Under 18s age groups.  (*This group of players went on to establish the Royals rugby club. RUGBY UNION The glories of Norths. (1980, November 30).The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), p. 5 Section: SPORT. Retrieved February 20, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article126161342)

See this Canberra Times article about the 1957 Norths Junior presentation day for the 5st 7lb team.
Norths Junior Rugby Union Presentations. (1957, August 24). The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), p. 7. Retrieved February 7, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91596774

Our Story

Our journey to becoming the Uni-Norths Owls Juniors is, as you would expect, intrisically linked to senior clubs.  In our case that started with Northern Suburbs and (through many later mergers) Canberra University College who along with Royal Military College and Eastern Suburbs first played for the John I Dent cup in 1938.  So you can see we have good lineage with both the Uni and the Norths being foundation clubs in the current Canberra Premier Rugby competition, the John I Dent cup.

So for anyone interested in ACT rugby history, I will attempt to summarise how Uni-Norths came to be based on old Canberra newspaper articles and the whisperings of old boys.  It is a summary of Northern Suburbs (the galloping greens established 1938), Canberra University College (a college of Melbourne University established 1938), Australian Forestry School (established 1949), Australian National University ( a merger of CUC and AFS established 1960), University of Canberra (formerly the Canberra College of Advanced Education Killer Bees established 1970), Combined Universities (a merger of ANU and UC established 1998) and finally Uni-Norths Owls (a merger of Universities and Northern Suburbs established 2001).