Ten teams from across Sydney competed for the J. J. Giltinan Shield during the season, which culminated in a grand final between St. George and Western Suburbs.

Having been wooden spooners in 1955, Wests embarked on a massive spending spree to recruit internationals Harry Wells, Kel O'Shea, Arthur Summons, Dick Poole, Darcy Henry and Ian Moir over a five-year period.

Nineteen-year-old Reg Gasnier, later to be honoured as one of the Australian game's Immortals, made his Third Grade debut in 1958 and was immediately noticed, regularly scoring length-of-the-field tries.

With a simple game plan of "retaliate first", the Magpies' aggression in the semifinal stunned St George who were coming off a coasting run through the end of the season.

The lessons from this loss sat heavily with St George – how an early forward onslaught designed to knock the spirit of the rival pack could determine the course of the entire game.

For the next eight years, in all of their finals appearances, the Dragons would play a deliberate tactic of giving the opposition the ball in the first fifteen minutes and setting about demoralising them with brutal defence.