Eastern Suburbs

The 2024 side, built under head coach Ben Batger, gave the club its tenth title.

The club met at Paddington Town Hall on 22 March 1900 to form itself, and its first game did not go to plan: a 7–5 loss to Glebe at the Sydney Cricket Ground, played in black jerseys and white shorts because the red, white and blue kit ordered from Britain had not arrived in time. Those colours, the tricolours, have stayed ever since, and they are also the reason Easts share a nickname, Roosters, with Sydney's rugby league club across town — a coincidence of matching jerseys rather than any shared history. On the field, the rivalry that matters most is with Sydney University, a fixture with no official derby name but with an edge that players and supporters describe as personal.

War interrupted the club once: from 1915 to 1919 Easts merged with Newtown before splitting back into an independent side in 1920. Peacetime brought other firsts — in 1967 Easts became the first Sydney rugby club to tour Japan.

Home games are played at Woollahra Oval in Rose Bay, a ground Easts moved into in 1949 after earlier years at Rushcutters Bay Oval and then Waverley Oval. The synthetic surface laid there in 2016, at a cost of $1.5 million, did not sit well with everyone who remembered the old turf.