1988 NSWRL season teams also competed for the 1988 Panasonic Cup. 1988 was the year of the Australian Bicentenary celebrations, and on 4 March, the season opened with the first game of rugby league played at the newly built Sydney Football Stadium. The St. George Dragons defeated the Eastern Suburbs Roosters 24–14. Easts and South Sydney would use the SFS as their home venue from 1988. This saw the end of both the Sydney Sports Ground (which closed due to the building of the SFS) and Redfern Oval as regular venues. The brand new Brisbane Broncos club, featuring Australian Kangaroos captain Wally Lewis
Big Country discography UK Album Chart and their subsequent albums "Steeltown" (1984), "The Seer" (1986) and "Peace in Our Time" (1988) all reached the top ten. By the time of the band's fifth album, "No Place Like Home" (1991), their commercial success had begun to wane and they released three more albums between 1993 and 1999 before the suicide of Adamson in 2001 led to the band splitting up. In 2007, Butler, Watson and Brzezicki celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of Big Country by reforming for a UK tour, touring again in 2010, this time with Mike Peters joining the band for vocal duties.