Fair Reward for Fair Play

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

Rugby league opened with little fanfare, amidst a sea of detractors plotting to bring about its downfall.

Denounced in the press by the rugby union authorities and newspaper editors as being "the serpent of professionalism", rugby league was predicted to be "nothing more than a nine-day wonder".

Some Sydney footballers were told by their employers that they would lose their jobs if they took up rugby league.

The NSWRU openly declared that any players who crossed to league "practically dig their own graves as far as football is concerned in Australia" and would be banned for life.

"Professionalism" in sport, particularly team sport, was presented by the press as "an abhorrent evil".

It was pointed out that professionalism had ruined sculling, cycling and track running in Australia, and football could well face the same demise.

So deep was the stain placed on a sportsman if he was outed as a "professional", even Australia's test cricketers, earning hundreds of pounds from international tours, shied away from the tag, preferring to label themselves as "amateurs who were merely drawing expenses."

Younger footballers in particular were brought under enormous pubic pressure, being told to ignore the temptations of earning money from sport, and to concentrate on devoting themselves to work and learning a trade – if they didn't, they were warned, a discarded footballer would find "their fate will be almost as pitiable as that of the discarded politician."

At one Sydney rugby union club meeting wild applause erupted following the pronouncement by one man that "he would rather see his son dead at his feet, than have him playing professional football."

Faced with such anxiety and doubts, it is not surprising to find that most of the footballers who took part in the opening round of the 1908 season were the older players.

While the younger players opted to "sit on the fence" and see if the League blossomed or floundered, the older footballers felt that they had little to lose, and much to gain.

Men such as Jersey Flegg (Easts), Dinny Lutge (Norths), Alec Burdon (Glebe), Arthur Hennessy (Souths) and Harry Hammill (Newtown) took prominent positions in the first months of 1908 at the founding of the League's new clubs. Other clubs were also formed at Balmain, Wests, Newcastle, and later, a "Cumberland" club (formed by players from Burwood in Wests district).

Attempts were also made to get clubs started at St George and Manly, however, with both districts heavily populated with younger players, the initiatives ultimately proved unsuccessful.

With the rugby league movement driven by working class issues, it was no surprise to see Labor Party politicians taking on the prominent "Club Patron" role, including future Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes (Glebe) and the nation's first Labor Prime Minister, John 'Chris' Watson (Souths).

The League's president was Henry 'Harry' Hoyle, a NSW Labor parliamentarian. Hoyle and the other Labor politicians spoke in favour of the League's principles of "fair reward for fair play", of looking after injured footballers by paying their medical and touring expenses, and giving the men a cut of the gate-money from the crowds that came to see them play.

Hoyle decried the amateur-driven NSWRU, who were holding enormous bank balances from gate-takings, as "offering a set of conditions controlling football that are not suitable to the democracy and social conditions of the Australian people."

The League's clubs were all established along state electoral boundaries, following what was called "the district scheme" – a model that had been successfully adopted in cricket (1893) and rugby union (1900).

The scheme fostered the growing competitive inter-district spirit in suburban Sydney, and ultimately fuelled rugby league's famed "tribal loyalties" and rivalries.

The decision to play by England's "Northern Union" (NU) rules (later renamed "rugby league") meant the players had much work to do in the months leading up to the season's kick-off.

Fortuitously for the League, (or perhaps covertly), an English rugby league player arrived in Sydney in early 1908. Tom McCabe, who had played for the Widnes and Wigan clubs in England, had direct experience of the "new rugby" brought about by the NU's decision to do away with rugby's line-outs, to reduce teams from 15 to 13 players (two less forwards), and to introduce the play-the-ball in place of the proliferation of scrummaging, rucks and mauls in the amateur code.

Through March and early April 1908, under the tutelage of McCabe, practice sessions were held at Latty's Picninc Grounds at Lansvale, and the first trial games at Botany. The New Zealand "All Golds" arrived back in Sydney in time to give some much welcomed first-hand know-how at the final trial matches.

Obtaining grounds had also initially been a problem for the NSWRL. While the League secured the two best suburban playing fields in Sydney, in Balmain's Birchgrove Oval and Glebe's Wentworth Park, it still needed a major city venue for its big crowd-drawing matches.

With the NSWRU holding exclusive leases over the SCG and the Sports Ground, and making attempts to lock up the adjacent Agricultural Ground as well, the League looked to be in a difficult position. However, when it was pointed out to Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) officials that the NSWRU could not possibly find any use for the ground, and that it would therefore gain no income from the fence signage and gate receipts, the RAS opted to side with the NSWRL, banking on it being a success.

Determined to aid the League's popularity, and therefore help its own profits, the RAS donated the game's first premiership prize, the RAS's "Challenge Shield", for the winner of the club competition.

Unfortunately for the League, the opening round – planned for Easter Monday 20 April 1908 – coincided with the Royal Easter Show, forcing the scheduling of afternoon "double-headers" at Birchgrove Oval (Souths v Norths at 2pm; Balmain v Wests at 3.15pm) and Wentworth Park (Easts v Newtown at 2pm; Glebe v Newcastle at 3.15pm). While the League got its wish for sunny mid-autumn day, it was competing for crowds with the Easter Show (80,000) and "Sydney Cup Day" at Randwick (30,000).

Paying sixpence entry, both League grounds attracted more than 3,000 fans each – respectable numbers for suburban football matches at that time, particularly given the other attractions on offer that day.

Easts' John Stuntz scored 4 tries in his team's win 32-16 over Newtown at Wentworth Park – a game which The Referee described "as fast as the wind". Remarkably, while Stuntz's try tally for a debutant has been equalled on three occasions in the century since, no one has yet bettered it (ironically, the Titans' first-timer Jordan Atkins scored 4 tries in Rd.1 of 2008).

Stuntz was also involved in a fight with a Newtown player near fulltime. In what were obviously still wild days in Sydney football, three Bluebags fans jumped the picket fence and came to the fistic-aid of their Newtown comrade.

The Glebe "Dirty Reds" then defeated Newcastle 8-5 in what many rated as a great game, the pace of the football continuing to impress. One reporter stating: "The play, like the preceding one, became very fast from the kick-off."

Across at Birchgrove Oval Souths scored a late try to beat Norths 11-7, and then Balmain had "a runaway win" over Wests 24-0. The Referee's reporter declaring the games were "brilliant from start to finish – they showed great pace". He also added his surprise at seeing tries scored from movements where "at times six or eight players handled the ball".

Others wrote of watching the code for the first time and being surprised that "there was less noise, less rough-and-tumble, but more of the real 'business' of football". The pace of the game was seemingly markedly above what players and fans alike had been used to under rugby union.

Having four less players on the field created far more openings for running with the ball and kicking to open spaces. The footballers were apparently so fatigued in playing the new code that they had "no energy to spare for tonguing" (sledging).

Many noted the scrums were no longer as prominent or important, with "the whole process, packing, heeling, and breaking up was speedily over" and another observing "scrums of only a second or two in duration".

It was also seen that "neither side showed any fondness for finding the touchline…knowing that if they let the ball go out they would have to rush up and bend their backs for a scrum."

Interestingly, few reports made any mention of the impact of the play-the-ball, indicating how infrequent they were in the game's first era, with most players opting to pass or kick the ball rather than be tackled to the ground or held with the ball.

From the spectators point of view the most striking difference was that, like cricket, soccer and Australian rules, they suddenly had a version of rugby where the ball was continuously in view from the stands and grassed hills.

Being able to watch the ball as it moved about, and to see in the open what choices the players and referee were making, meant the fans had a far greater emotional input into the game.

This article is based on Pioneers of Rugby League.

Rugby union officials watched the first games too, with one openly surmising in a letter to the Sunday Sun that the League game "is from a spectators point of view, as well as a players, preferable and outclasses the game of rugby – in fact, I predict that unless our Union adopts the same rules our Union will be as dead as Julius Caesar as far as public interest in concerned."

The bitter cross-code war flamed during the rest of 1908 and continued well into the 1910 season.

However, the weight of player and public support gradually told on the income of the NSWRU, and when the League finally obtained its first use of the SCG in 1911, a crowd of more than 50,000 packed in to watch Dally Messenger lead a NSW team against New Zealand.