Victoria Bitter (VB) has announced it is running its ‘Big Leg Up’ initiative for the second consecutive year, searching for the hardest-working amateur Rugby League club, and rewarding them with a $50,000 sponsorship prize.
The ‘Big Leg Up’ is an initiative championed by Victoria Bitter and the NRL to reward hard work at the grassroots level by supporting a registered amateur Rugby League club doing it tough. The winner of the competition will receive the prize in 2026 and the grass-root club must “embody VB’s values of hard work and resilience”.
VB will also work with the winning club to identify how it can help turn things around, whether that may be new changerooms, a boost to the team morale, or something entirely different.
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To promote this initiative VB have partnered with both the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs and the St George Illawarra Dragons, posting Instagram videos to their supporter bases to help VB gain traction.
The NRL Bulldogs video starts with an opening shot of five-eight Matt Burton who explains the campaign. “Victoria Bitter is on the hunt for Australia’s most hardworking and resilient grass-roots Rugby League club,” he said.
He proceeds to put up an infamous ‘Burto bomb’, that Queensland’s 18th man Kurt Mann catches. The Bulldogs lock describes the prize for the winner, before passing the ball to utility Jake Turpin who spells out how to enter your local club.
The Cudgen Hornets RLFC, from Kingscliff in northern New South Wales, was the winner of the ‘2024 VB Big Leg Up’. For the Cudgen Hornets the past few years have been a testament to resilience. Its clubhouse and changerooms were destroyed by fire in 2020 and the club has struggled to get back on its feet ever since. Instead, having to rely on makeshift tents and nearby soccer changerooms to help field a team each week.
Rebuilding efforts have been slow due to limited resources and player numbers are down due to the lack of facilities. Despite these challenges, the Hornets have shown extraordinary determination, with the senior team and reserves both winning premierships in 2023. Thanks to Victoria Bitter’s backing the club it was awarded $50,000 to help rebuild its badly needed facilities. In addition, VB supported the club through fundraising efforts and helped raise its profile by sharing its story across social media.
This is not the first time VB have partnered with the NRL, having a long standing relationship. From being the major sponsor of the NSW blues from 2011-2018, to having its own individual award in 2025, VB have been sniffing around Rugby League for quite some time.
This year its most notable campaigns have been the ‘The VB Hard Earned Index’, which rewards players who rack up the most runs, tackles, supports, decoys, offloads, charge-downs, line engagements and tackle-breaks in each game of the round. Players are given an index score based on their output and the highest-scoring players in each position making the Team of the Week.
As well as being the official beer sponsor of the State of Origin, which was kicked off through VB’s Very Bitter Tissues’ – a unique idea designed to stir the state vs state banter ahead of the fiery three part series.
The campaign leans into the competitive interstate spirit of Origin, giving fans a new way to fuel the rivalry and have a laugh by gifting a box of VB tissues to friends on the losing side. Each pack features half-NSW, half-QLD colours, classic one-liners such as “Sorry for your loss”, “You tried your best,” and “Chin up, Champ”, plus a lid that doubles as a beer coaster.
