Western Force Rugby History - ColonialRugby.com.au

Rugby in the Colony of Western Australia

Sean Fagan - ColonialRugby.com.au

Outside of the rugby heartland colonies of NSW, New Zealand and Queensland, the code found its greatest support in Western Australia. Ultimately though, with Perth and Fremantle forming economic and cultural connections with the closer Adelaide and Melbourne, Victorian rules gained the ascendancy.

Informal rugby contests are known to have been played in the late 1860s between British military regiments and civilians in Perth and Fremantle.

Interest was apparently high enough for The Fremantle Herald to publish the rules. Rugby though did not take hold, and through the 1870s 'football' was played under locally devised rules that may have included elements of rugby and Victorian (aka Australian) rules.

The Western Australian Times reported in April 1878 that there was a movement afoot in Perth to form a football club. There are no further mentions though made of what, if anything, eventuated.

On 2nd August 1878 The Western Australian Times recorded the playing of two matches "between several gentlemen...according to the rugby rules" on the "College Grounds" (presumably a reference to Hale School).

Later that month, and in again in May 1880, the same newspaper made reference to the existence of one or more unnamed football clubs, but provided no other information.

The archives of Hale School (originally known as Perth High School) record that 1878 was the year that saw the formation of in-school football teams for the first time, however no details of the matches remain. The instigator was the School's Headmaster, 24 years old Mr Davies.

The School's magazine, "The Cygnet", included details of a rugby match in 1879:

"The first match of the season was played on Saturday, May 24 [1879], between the Boarders and the Day-boys. Mr Davies, Mr Hart, Mr Parry, and Mr Parker took part in the game, which resulted in a victory for the Boarders by two goals and three touch downs."

"Football seems now to be fairly established among us, and if due attention is paid to the rules which make Rugby Union the game it is, especially with regard to playing offside, backing up, and a well-maintained scrimmage, there seems no reason to doubt, judging by the earnest way in which nearly all take part in the game, that Football will soon become as much an institution here as it is at Home."

Source: "The Cygnet"

Davies was replaced as the School's Headmaster in 1880 by Thomas Breama Beuttler, who had attended Rugby School and Cambridge University. On the 18th June 1881, Beuttler organised the first competitive rugby game in Western Australia, with Hale (Perth School) playing against a "Town XV". The School team was captained by Alfred Parry, son of the city's Bishop. The teams met again twice more before the close of the season.

The following year (1882) saw the School team joined by four rugby clubs (Perth, Fremantle, Unions and Rovers). However, as in NSW and Queensland, a battle for the loyalty of footballers erupted between rugby and Australian rules.

The 1883 season opened with news in The West Australian that an Australian rules club was being formed, and that some of the existing rugby clubs would also trial a few games that winter under "the much vaunted Victorian rules and thus Perth people will have an opportunity of judging of the respective merits of the codes."

No immediate resolution was found, and in 1884 the Western Mail voiced a growing belief that football in the colony was being "kept back by the practice of two distinct games being played by the same players."

According to reports in the West Australian "the rugby game gave way to the Victorian game" at the start of 1885 as "the majority of the football clubs of Perth and Fremantle have agreed to adopt a common set of rules" (being Australian rules). The coming together of the clubs led to the formation of the Western Australian Football Association (now WAFL).

Fremantle's 'Unions' rugby club played on alone in 1885, with matches amongst its own members and other rugby players who refused to take up Australian rules. In 1886 though the Unions club too joined the WAFA, and many rugby players gave all football away.

In 1887 rugby games were again being played in Perth amongst interested footballers. The football season that year closed with a rugby match held on Fremantle Park between 'Perth' and 'Fremantle'. The West Australian reported "the play was witnessed by a large number of spectators," though neither team was able to register a point.

Rugby soon received a considerable boost following the discovery of rich seams of gold in the colony in the early 1890s - admidst the westward rush of miners and others looking for work opportunities from the Eastern colonies (including New Zealand) rugby clubs were formed in the major gold-mining towns of Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie. The influx also led to clubs being founded in Fremantle and Perth, and in 1893 the Western Australian Rugby Union (WARU) was created.

In the mid-1890s five rugby clubs formed a club competition in Fremantle (Pirates, Zingari, Swans, Fremantle & Midland), and at least two other clubs were known to be playing in Perth (including the Perth Rugby Club).

A combined Perth-Fremantle team was also regularly selected during the decade to meet visiting teams from the goldfields, with the final known representative game taking place in 1899.

The driving force behind rugby in the colony appears to have been former Sydneysider and occasional gold-mining prospector, Lionel Gouly (born in Woolloomooloo in 1873). Gouly was a very prominent and popular cricketer in Perth and Fremantle, in the winter months he not only played for and captained the Swans rugby club, but was also an enthusiastic Secretary of the WARU.

In June 1899 the British (Lions) rugby team arrived in Fremantle from England. Gouly became the first Australian rugby official to meet Matthew Mullineux (captain), boarding the ship when it arrived in port. Gouly and Mullineux agreed to playing a match against Perth or a combined Western Australian team (Perth, Fremantle and the goldfields) on the return voyage home. However, the tourists eventually went their separate ways when the tour ended in Sydney, with most of the team opting to travel back to England via the Pacific and North America.

The loss of the opportunity of playing a prestigious and publicity-drawing game against Mullineux's team proved a major disappointment. The code was further downcast following Gouly's enlistment in early 1900 with the "Western Australian Bushmen" - a military contingent who travelled to South Africa and served in the Boer War. In 1901 the WARU disbanded and none of the clubs continued with the game.

Gouly returned to Perth, going on to represent Western Australia in cricket matches in 1905/06 (v. South Australia) and in 1907-08 (v England). Meanwhile a rugby revival began in 1905 with the formation of five clubs: Fremantle Pioneers, Sydney, Swan District, Pirates and Perth.

Encouraged by the developments, the NSWRU announced that a NSW team would be undertaking a four-match tour of Western Australia in late July 1907.

The tour coincided with the visit of the New Zealand 'All Blacks' to NSW and Queensland, resulting in a 'second-string' NSW team sailing to Perth (though two of its members, Arthur McCabe and Bede Daly, were selected in the first Wallabies team a year later). The NSW team won all four matches, defeating 'Metropolitan', 'Gold Fields', and Western Australia (twice).

Endeavouring to aid the code in the West, in the preparation of the 1908 Wallabies team for its British tour, the NSWRU offered to fully cover the costs of any Western Australian players prepared to venture to Sydney for selection trials. No players though pursued the opportunity. On their way to England the Wallabies played a Western Australian team in Fremantle. After leading 30-0 at half-time, the Wallabies completed the rout with a 58-6 win.

The home team included numerous ex-pats from the east (including New Zealand), which was a pointer to the problems rugby was facing in Western Australia. Without any support in the schools (as a direct result of the formation and activism of the nationalistic Young Australia League) the code had few local players coming through, and no prospects of growth.

The extent of the contribution of Gouly in the post 1905 resurgence is not known, however, there is no doubt that the code felt a deep loss when the 38 y.o. tragically passed away in 1911. It is perhaps more than coincidence that not a single rugby club reformed for the 1912 season, and rugby once again became extinct in Western Australia.

References.
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Referee
The Sunday Sun (Sydney)
http://www.rugbymuseum.co.nz/
NSWRU / ARU archives
Peter Sharpham, The First Wallabies
Jack Pollard, Australian Rugby Union: The Game and Its Players
Additional information from Keith Campbell
History of rugby at Hale School (Perth) kindly provided byRob Barugh on b/h of Hale School
Keyword related: Western Force