Queenslander
20-04-06, 01:15 PM
The History of Rugby League in Melbourne
Wednesday, April 19, 2006 - 5:52 PM
State of Origin 3, 2006 represents only the eighth occasion in 98 years that major representative Rugby League has 'come to play' in Melbourne.
The story of the occasional earlier sorties by the 13-a-side game into Melbourne is a fascinating Australian sporting tale. Its beginning traces back to the early years of the 20th century, when Australian Rules football jousted with soccer and rugby union for `majority rule? in Sydney. The signing of the greatest and most charismatic footballer of his time, Herbert Henry `Dally? Messenger, to the new game of Rugby League in 1908 was a pivotal event in seeing off the `Rules challenge? to the two rugby codes in NSW and Queensland.
Even before that time the idea of one 'Australia-wide' game had surfaced now and then as the rival football codes jostled for their places in the hearts and minds of the Aussie sporting public.
In 1908 when the first touring Kangaroo (Rugby League) team arrived in Melbourne aboard the steamer Macedonia en route to England, team officials met representatives of the Australian Rules Golden Jubilee Carnival to discuss a proposed merger between the two codes. In July that year the entrepreneurial James J Giltinan, founding father of Rugby League in Australia, proposed a set of rules for a merged code. But it came to nothing then - nor in 1914 when League and VFL officials met once more to discuss the possibilities. In 1933, the idea progressed as far as the playing of a peculiar hybrid game (15-a-side) at the Sydney Showground ? an event that proved to be the last-ever attempt to bring the codes together. The experiment was a significant flop, prompting the distinguished League journalist Tom Goodman to write: ?To paraphrase Kipling, league is league and rules is rules and never the twain shall meet.?
Rugby League?s first full-scale incursion into Melbourne came in 1914. It turned out to be the wrong match at the wrong time ? even if the idea at the heart of it was a good and progressive one. In the wake of a furiously fought Test series between Australia and England which had left tempers still running hot and scores to be settled, NSW played the Englishmen at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. In a ferocious battle which has been called ?the dirtiest game ever played?, England won 21-15 before a shocked crowd of 13,000. It was a long time before Rugby League came back to Melbourne.
Despite the presence of an established Victorian club competition from the 1950s (with League roots in the state reaching back to the 1920s), it wasn?t until 1978 that big-time League again ventured south from Sydney to the Victorian capital. Again it was a blood ?n ' thunder game, when Sydney?s Western Suburbs and Manly clubs battled it out in a Saturday afternoon `Festival of Football? promotion at Junction Oval ? laying the foundation for a bitter feud between the clubs that lasted for years.
In the calmer waters of more recent times six major League matches have been played in Melbourne:
1991: Test, Australia v. New Zealand - New Zealand 24, Australia 8 at Olympic Park. Crowd: 26,900
1992; Test, Australia v Great Britain - Great Britain 33, Australia 10 at Princes Park. Crowd: 31,005
1990: State of Origin2 ? NSW 12, Queensland 6 at Olympic Park. Crowd: 25,800
1994: State of Origin2 ? NSW 14, Queensland 0 at Melbourne Cricket Ground. Crowd: 87,161
1995: State of Origin 2 ? Queensland 20, NSW 12 at Melbourne Cricket Ground. Crowd: 52,994
1997: State of Origin 2 ? NSW 15, Queensland 14 at Melbourne Cricket Ground. Crowd: 25,105.
In 1998, the creation of the Melbourne Storm club gave Rugby League a high-level stance in the city for the first time. Against all odds and defying the lessons of history, the Storm promptly won the NRL premiership in 1999. After all the seasons stretching before, the game was surely here to stay...
Now the Origin carnival is heading back to town after a break of nine years. At Telstra Dome on the night of July 5, via the mixed brawn and brilliance of fierce rivals NSW and Queensland, the next chapter in the long and colourful saga of Rugby League in Melbourne will be written.
Source: NRL
Wednesday, April 19, 2006 - 5:52 PM
State of Origin 3, 2006 represents only the eighth occasion in 98 years that major representative Rugby League has 'come to play' in Melbourne.
The story of the occasional earlier sorties by the 13-a-side game into Melbourne is a fascinating Australian sporting tale. Its beginning traces back to the early years of the 20th century, when Australian Rules football jousted with soccer and rugby union for `majority rule? in Sydney. The signing of the greatest and most charismatic footballer of his time, Herbert Henry `Dally? Messenger, to the new game of Rugby League in 1908 was a pivotal event in seeing off the `Rules challenge? to the two rugby codes in NSW and Queensland.
Even before that time the idea of one 'Australia-wide' game had surfaced now and then as the rival football codes jostled for their places in the hearts and minds of the Aussie sporting public.
In 1908 when the first touring Kangaroo (Rugby League) team arrived in Melbourne aboard the steamer Macedonia en route to England, team officials met representatives of the Australian Rules Golden Jubilee Carnival to discuss a proposed merger between the two codes. In July that year the entrepreneurial James J Giltinan, founding father of Rugby League in Australia, proposed a set of rules for a merged code. But it came to nothing then - nor in 1914 when League and VFL officials met once more to discuss the possibilities. In 1933, the idea progressed as far as the playing of a peculiar hybrid game (15-a-side) at the Sydney Showground ? an event that proved to be the last-ever attempt to bring the codes together. The experiment was a significant flop, prompting the distinguished League journalist Tom Goodman to write: ?To paraphrase Kipling, league is league and rules is rules and never the twain shall meet.?
Rugby League?s first full-scale incursion into Melbourne came in 1914. It turned out to be the wrong match at the wrong time ? even if the idea at the heart of it was a good and progressive one. In the wake of a furiously fought Test series between Australia and England which had left tempers still running hot and scores to be settled, NSW played the Englishmen at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. In a ferocious battle which has been called ?the dirtiest game ever played?, England won 21-15 before a shocked crowd of 13,000. It was a long time before Rugby League came back to Melbourne.
Despite the presence of an established Victorian club competition from the 1950s (with League roots in the state reaching back to the 1920s), it wasn?t until 1978 that big-time League again ventured south from Sydney to the Victorian capital. Again it was a blood ?n ' thunder game, when Sydney?s Western Suburbs and Manly clubs battled it out in a Saturday afternoon `Festival of Football? promotion at Junction Oval ? laying the foundation for a bitter feud between the clubs that lasted for years.
In the calmer waters of more recent times six major League matches have been played in Melbourne:
1991: Test, Australia v. New Zealand - New Zealand 24, Australia 8 at Olympic Park. Crowd: 26,900
1992; Test, Australia v Great Britain - Great Britain 33, Australia 10 at Princes Park. Crowd: 31,005
1990: State of Origin2 ? NSW 12, Queensland 6 at Olympic Park. Crowd: 25,800
1994: State of Origin2 ? NSW 14, Queensland 0 at Melbourne Cricket Ground. Crowd: 87,161
1995: State of Origin 2 ? Queensland 20, NSW 12 at Melbourne Cricket Ground. Crowd: 52,994
1997: State of Origin 2 ? NSW 15, Queensland 14 at Melbourne Cricket Ground. Crowd: 25,105.
In 1998, the creation of the Melbourne Storm club gave Rugby League a high-level stance in the city for the first time. Against all odds and defying the lessons of history, the Storm promptly won the NRL premiership in 1999. After all the seasons stretching before, the game was surely here to stay...
Now the Origin carnival is heading back to town after a break of nine years. At Telstra Dome on the night of July 5, via the mixed brawn and brilliance of fierce rivals NSW and Queensland, the next chapter in the long and colourful saga of Rugby League in Melbourne will be written.
Source: NRL