All NSW Rugby League clubs (except Western Suburbs) chose the same colours as their rugby union counterparts in the inaugural season of 1908. Photos were taken of each team in the early part of 1908 season and showed most players used their rugby union jerseys, which sometimes varied in design and collar types between the players.
South Sydney issued brand new jerseys to all the players later in that first season, which is shown in our 1908 premiership winning team photo, with all but two players in that photo wearing jerseys with even two-inch bars of cardinal red and myrtle green. The other two are shown wearing uneven bars of four-inch myrtle green and two-inch cardinal red.
The following season our 1909 premiership winning team photo shows all players except one wearing the uneven bars, which was the preferred design in years to come, with only minor changes in collar types used.
Throughout the first World War and into the Club’s first Golden Era (1925-29), the uneven cardinal and myrtle hoops remained.
