"Tut Woman - This Was a Man's Game"

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

Huddersfield's Harold Wagstaff - captained England in the 1914 Ashes series in Australia.

More than a few in the game see the inter-change as something that has robbed rugby league of one its strongest attributes – the ability of a man, and his team, to fight on against their opponents for the full 80 minutes.

The real battle of man against man is denied when some can go off the field and rest, before returning to the fray.

Even the mere introduction of the replacement rule for injured players (mid/late 1960s) was an unwelcome change for a lot of fans and retired footballers.

Many of rugby league's most celebrated stories centre around epic efforts by teams, reduced to less than 13-a-side, grimly holding out their adversaries and claiming an unlikely, and memorable, victory.

Losing a player and coping with his loss was part of the game - having the advantage of a fresh reinforcement was frowned upon as unfair, and unmanly.

Putting aside instances where a team loses a player due to a sending-off – which is arguably self-inflicted damage – there are examples stretching all the way back to 1914, with the legendary “Rorke's Drift Test” at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Reduced by injuries to just 10 players with 30 minutes remaining, Harold Wagstaff's Englishmen held on for an epic 14-6 victory over 13 Australians. The crowd, rather than feeling that they had been served up a mis-match for their money, were so impressed by the Lions' bravery that they began cheering and urging on the visitors.

“The victory was ours,” recalled a well-satisfied Wagstaff of the match, “and the Australian crowd gave us full credit for it. They swung around to our side in the second half and they were with us to the end, cheering us on in inspiring fashion. When the final whistle sounded we were done. We had gone to the last gasp and were just about finished.”

During the first half of the match England 's Dougie Clark broke his thumb. Clark left the field, had his thumb tightly bandaged, and returned to the fray – he was determined to not let his team mates down.

Just after half-time Clark, with the ball in his possession, seemed certain to score a try. As Australia's ‘Pony' Halloway came across to cut Clark down, the Englishman instinctively threw out his arm to palm-off the little half-back. Remembering his broken thumb, Clark hurriedly pulled back his arm, and instead decided to bump Halloway off, putting all his weight into his leading-shoulder.

Halloway though suddenly tripped backwards, and Clark fell shoulder first through the vacant space and onto the ground – hard. Writhing in pain, the Huddersfield man was taken from the field with a broken collarbone. This time he didn't come back.

Exiting the field, and leaving the team down a player, was once the last resort of a rugby league player. The theory was, at the very least, an injured man could stand in the defence line and get in the way of the opposition.

The icy glare of Glebe's Frank Burge.

Frank Burge, in a club match for Glebe in the 1910s, is reported to have broken his arm so badly that part of the bone protruded through the flesh.

As he wandered around behind play to compose himself his brother Peter shouted: "You're not going off are you?"

Frank, with his pride hurt at the mere accusation, retorted: "I hope you bloody well don't think I am!"

He played on a for a few more minutes until he collapsed to the ground and had to be carried off.

This legendary story of Frank Burge may be apocryphal, but it is typical of the attitude that prevailed in the game before the replacement rule.

While it wasn't publicly advocated, it was not uncommon for an injured player, in the realisation that he could no longer continue, to do his best to take one of the opposition with him.

In the third Test of the 1962 Ashes series, Australia 's Dud Beattie suffered a broken collarbone. Knowing his fate, Beattie ignited a fight with Britain 's Derek Turner. When the dust settled, the referee sent both players from the field.

As Beattie was being half-carried from the arena by an ambulanceman, Turner prodded and remonstrated with Beattie for his actions. Australia went on to win the Test with a last minute converted try, with Ken Irvine sneaking over in the corner against a 12-man defence.

Even after leaving the field for treatment, many attempted to return – and were bitterly disappointed if they couldn't.

In the famous “Battle of Brisbane” Test of 1932, Australia 's hooker Dan Dempsey was forced off the field with a broken arm early in the second half. Dempsey, his arm placed in splints, began weeping on the touchline – not from the pain, but because both the ambulanceman and the team's manager, Harry Sunderland, wouldn't let him back into the game.

Dempsey's case echoes that of Clive Churchill who in 1955, his arm broken, played on through the second half of a must-win club match against Manly. The “Redfern roar” went up when Churchill kicked a last-second conversion goal to take the game – Souths went on to win the premiership thanks to that kick.

In an earlier instance of Churchill's resolute spirit, during the 1948/49 Kangaroos tour of Britain "the little master" attempted to tackle a particularly big Warrington forward in a club match. While Churchill copped a knee in the head, he brought his man down, and continued to play on even though dazed.

Minutes later Churchill put in a kick near the touchline – just as the ball left his boot, Warrington 's Aussie Harry Bath met Churchill head-on.

“His terrific momentum hurled me savagely against a huge cement shelter near the sideline,” recalled Churchill – but that was all he could recount. After the game he was taken to hospital.

“Our manager, Bill Buckley, visited me,” said Churchill. “I apologised to him for not finishing the match. Much to my surprise he assured me I had played throughout the whole match. That convinced me I had been unconscious – but I could remember nothing.”

Churchill's attitude was what the game was once about. The way it had always been.

When Harold Wagstaff walked from the field in 1914, through the picket gate in front of the Members Pavilion at the SCG, a woman looked at his battered, bloodied and tired face. She sympathetically asked Wagstaff of his injuries.

“Tut, woman – it was football,” came Wagstaff's curt reply.

“This was a man's game.”