Rugby in the Colony of Queensland

Sean Fagan - ColonialRugby.com.au

Organised football came to Queensland in 1866 with the formation of the Brisbane FC.

Few details are known of the club's playing rules, and historically they have been accepted as being those in use in Melbourne football, but they may well have been a unique game to Brisbane.

The Queensland team that played against New Zealand in 1893.

Newspaper accounts of Brisbane matches in the late 1860s and early 1870s are littered with mentions of rugby-style wrestling and scrummaging, suggesting that Melbourne's Victorian (aka Australian) rules were not being followed.

However, nor was it strictly rugby either, as there are no mentions of running in tries, and off-side play appeared to be commonplace.

A trend though towards rugby was emerging, and in 1875 The Brisbane Courier observed that football was in a confused position with seemingly some players (and possibly clubs) intent on following rugby's laws, but that this "spoils a game when some play it in full and some do not," and in other instances "there was an erratic deviation now and then...into the rugby style, but it was no doubt merely the force of habit."

It was a haphazard state-of-affairs that suggests new arrivals from Britain, as well as returning students sent to English schools from Queensland, were attempting to play by a strict application of rugby laws.

Australian rules was also beginning to exert its influence, and a letter writer to The Brisbane Courier called on the city's footballers and clubs to "simplify and diminish the present number of Brisbane playing rules, or adopt instead the Victorian rules (thirteen in number)."

The conflict was intially resolved in 1876 by the three Brisbane football clubs agreeing to play under the laws of the English RFU - though matches that season were described as "Rugby, with Brisbane variations, was the game played".

Interestingly, the published account of the 1876 Brisbane FC meeting (The Brisbane Courier 4 May) states that the decision for the club to change to rugby from its own rules was that the other Brisbane clubs were already playing rugby (which suggests rugby was first played in the colony in 1875, or earlier).

A meeting of the Rangers FC (The Brisbane Courier 28 July) stated that it's players who had "tried the Rugby Union, Melbourne, and rules of our own, wished to go back to Rugby Union rules."

The use or rugby laws (or a varied form of it) remained in place for club matches in 1877 and '78, while Brisbane and Ipswich met in a rugby match in August 1878.

Universal approval amongst the footballers themselves was never found, with The Brisbane Courier noting that "the bulk of the Brisbane players do not appear to 'savee' the complicated rugby code of rules."

For every footballer who argued that "there is too much holding the ball and disputing about 'on' and 'off' side, this is not football at all," you could find another to offer that "the game as played in this colony is really a pitiful, mongrel imitation of neither English nor Melbourne football." No one it seems was happy.

In 1879 that the Brisbane FC adopted the simpler Australian (Victorian) football rules for the coming winter "in place of the Rugby Union Rules played by the club during the last three seasons."

The 1880 winter saw the four existing clubs (Brisbane, Wallaroo, Excelsiors, Athenians/Ipswich) resolve to form the Queensland Football Association (QFA).

While the QFA is recognised today as AFLQ (Australian rules) it in fact began as a dual-code body under which it would "recognise both strict Melbourne and strict Rugby Union rules of football, and that arrangements should be made to play a match under the Rugby Union rules each fourth Saturday" (reported in The Brisbane Courier 1 May 1880).

The balance of matches in favour of Australian football over rugby seems to have been fair given The Brisbane Courier unequivocally stated at the time that "The rugby game, however, is certainly not in favour here amongst either the majority of the players or with the public."

Rugby was not the more popular code in Brisbane, but games continued to be played and it was far from dead.

Late in the 1882 season the Brisbane FC contacted the Wallaroo rugby club in Sydney, challenging them to a match. The Wallaroos handed the matter over the NSWRU and it was agreed that the Brisbane club should be invited to Sydney. However, suggestions were made in the press that the NSWRU (rugby) and the NSWFA (Australian rules) should share the costs of the visit and that the teams play matches under both codes.

The NSWFA readily agreed with the proposal, but were gazumped by the NSWRU. The NSW rugby body offered to the Brisbane FC to pay all their costs provided they only played rugby during their visit - the Brisbane officials immediately accepted the offer.

It was also agreed that both teams should adopt the name of their colony, and players be selected from all clubs in the respective capital cities. The tour took place, and the first inter-colonial (inter-state) match was held in Sydney, with NSW winning the contest 28-4.

With the NSWRU keen to keep the inter-colony matches going, a NSW team journeyed to Brisbane in 1883. Trained in readiness, the Queensland team ambushed the visitors and gained a victory over the New South Welshmen.

The win gave rugby in Brisbane a huge boost, with many footballers wanting to try the code that had overpowered the "Mother colony". It was thought that Brisbane's clubs would simply increase the number of rugby matches for 1884 to accomodate the rising interest, while continuing to play Australian rules as well.

However, it soon became clear that the clubs would side with the QFA, after The Queensland Figaro revealed the Association's decree of "one very hard and fast rule will be - none of you men may play rugby." The penalty for playing rugby was a ban from all club matches; meaning the footballers would be giving up the season's Australian rules matches if they dared to dabble in rugby.

Rather than resolving the divide, the QFA's attitude caused a permanent rift in Brisbane and Queensland football. Instead of capitulating to the QFA, or simply giving up football altogether, the rugby players and their supporters resolved to form their own association, and in November 1883 the Northern Rugby Football Union (QRU) came into being. Enough players aligned with the rugby body to form two clubs (Fireflies and Wanderers) for the start of the 1884 football season.

The heaviest blow to Australian rules came after the NSWRU and QRU decision to make the NSW v Queensland fixtures an annual series. Rugby's hold grew stronger in the decade that followed via the popular appeal generated from visits of New Zealand and British teams. Unable to provide comparable attractions, Australian rules fell well behind rugby in the Northern colony.

Meanwhile, the rugby game spread throughout Queensland to Toowoomba, Rockhampton, Maryborough, Gympie and, most notably, Charters Towers.

References.
Sean Fagan, The Rugby Rebellion
The Brisbane Courier
The Sunday Sun (Sydney)
Ian Diehm, Red! Red! Red! The Story of Queensland Rugby
NSWRU / ARU archives
Keyword related: Queensland Reds

© Copyright - Sean Fagan - ColonialRugby.com.au