If nothing else, our football predecessors in Sydney and Melbourne a century ago certainly weren’t afraid of setting themselves lofty dreams of a national united football code.

Rugby league’s founders in Sydney, entrepreneur James J. Giltinan and cricketer Victor Trumper, had started out with the goal of not only bringing professional rugby to Australia, but of a national football code that brought all of our major cities together – particularly Sydney and Melbourne, where a NSW vs Victoria football series would produce a gate taking bonanza for all involved.

Rugby league had also hooked up with their counterparts in England, and “Ashes” style football tours and “Tests” were also on offer for an Australian team.

Early attempts to showcase rugby league games in Melbourne were thwarted by Giltinan’s inability to lease any enclosed grounds away from wary Australian rules clubs, even for just one Saturday afternoon.

Rugby league in Sydney, though, was quickly gaining in popularity over rugby union with footballers and fans alike. While 15-man rugby was “on the nose” for rigidly sticking to its amateur principles by refusing to compensate injured players for lost work time and not providing its largely working class footballers with a share of the gate takings, its playing rules were also the source of much criticism. In comparison to the open play of Australian rules, rugby union was decried as a boring “run-kick-and-shove” game. In comparison, rugby league, with two less players on each team and streamlined rules, was called “new rugby”; it had far more ball-passing movements, no line-outs, rucks or mauls, while scrums were far less frequent and quickly over with.

While these features found favour with Sydney’s rugby fraternity, rugby league as a game produced an unexpected bonus – it was described as being a “halfway house” of a game, being just as close to Australian rules as it was to rugby union. As in Aussie rules, the “held” and “play-the-ball” rules in rugby league at that time came into operation the very moment a defender clutched a ball-carrier. With no guarantee of maintaining possession from a play-the-ball, attackers avoided being tackled at all costs, dropping, passing or kicking the football away rather than be caught.

Rugby league also had rules that provided for kicks at goal from “marks” (catching the ball on the full from an opponent’s kick or knock-on), and soccer-style goals (kicking the ball off the ground and over the crossbar).

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