THE MAROON-HEARTED WARATAH

Harry Abbott – refused to play for NSW against Queensland

It’s no revelation to anyone that the NSW Waratahs and Queensland Reds in Super Rugby are essentially now clubs, no longer representative teams – players can and are sourced and contracted from far beyond their state borders.

written by Sean Fagan

A prominent example of one of the early imported players to wear the Waratahs jersey, without ever having first played for a NSW club, was Jason Little in 1999. The following season he became NSW captain.

Of course, Queenslanders moving south and later being selected for NSW to play against their home state is no rare occurrence, extending back to the 1880s. Many young rugby players came to Sydney as a consequence of Queensland not having a University to complete studies and gain qualifications.

The story of one young man is worth recounting – Harry Abbott – a name that went unrivalled as the best outside back ever seen in Australian rugby, until the rise of Dally Messenger. The Referee wrote in 1907 of Messenger: “No New South Wales player since the days of Henry Abbott has ever shown such form in the centre three-quarter position.”

Abbott had moved down from Brisbane in 1891 to study law at Sydney University. He was already well-known as a schoolboy rugby star with Brisbane Grammar, playing against NSW (at the age of 14) in 1887.

Two years later Abbott played for Queensland against the New Zealand Maori and NSW. He was still a student when he came to Sydney in 1890 as a key member of the Queensland side for the annual series against NSW.

In 1891 Abbott arrived at Sydney University and naturally joined the rugby club. From then until retiring in 1897 he forged a career that was long revered by those that recalled him in action.

The Sydney Mail wrote towards the end of this playing days,

Abbott is admitted on all sides to be the finest rugby footballer in New South Wales. His superior has probably never been seen in Australia, not even excepting the best of the powerful 1888 English [British] team or the famous [1888/89] Maori combination.

He is a powerfully built well-proportioned man, standing over 6ft, remarkably quick on his legs, cool as a cucumber, and best of all he is thoroughly acquainted with the finer points of the game.

It usually takes three opponents, or two at least, to stop Abbott when once fairly started, for his dodging and feinting tactics are superb. He has a habit too of kicking goals from the field with astonishing precision.

A look at Abbott’s c.v. shows he was regularly selected for NSW against New Zealand and Victoria through the 1890s, including as captain. What is intriguingly noticeable though is his name only appears once for NSW against Queensland – in Brisbane in 1891.

At the end of his rookie season (1891) in Sydney the young Abbott opted to break his studies and return home for a short visit. At the same time, NSW were to sail to Brisbane to play the series against Queensland. Abbott taunted the NSW players that he would meet them on the rugby field, determined to take his place for Brisbane Grammars against NSW during the tour.

In the opening game though the Queenslanders held NSW to a surprise 9-all draw. Fearing an embarrassing series defeat, the NSW manager and senior players called upon Abbott to play for his adopted state [colony] in the return match. Abbott agreed to join the NSW team, but refused to play against or for Grammars in the intervening mid-week game.

Though Abbott played well for NSW in the match against Queensland, the home side routed the visitors 11-0. Far from a pleasant afternoon of playing against many familiar Queensland rugby friends, Abbott found the whole experience difficult to stomach. He vowed to never play for NSW against Queensland again.

The Sydney Mail explaining that

A native of Queensland, Abbott’s patriotism prevents him from taking the field against his colony in representative matches…as each subsequent winter brought with it the inter-colonial contests he religiously held aloof.

Abbott retired after injuring his ankle against New Zealand in 1897. He had stuck true to his word, forsaking five series worth of opportunities to wear the waratah-adorned NSW jersey against Queensland.

The only player that threatened to displace Abbott atop the rugby popularity totem before the arrival of Messenger was Stephen ‘Lonnie’ Spragg, a side-stepping centre/winger who starred for Australia in the 1899 Test series against the British Lions. Like Messenger, he was also a prodigious goal kicker.

In the summer of 1899/1900 Spragg moved to Rockhampton in Queensland. Sydney’s The Referee sports newspaper wrote:

It will be a great pity if such a fine player as Spragg be unavailable for [NSW] this year’s inter-colonial matches. Even though residing in Rockhampton I am of the opinion he should play for NSW. The time has arrived, I think, for the observance of [such] a qualification for players in inter-colonial matches.

While the journalist and many in NSW rugby were genuinely pining for Spragg to appear in the light-blue jersey, they were equally fearful of seeing him in maroon colours – concerns that were well-founded, for Spragg amassed 70 points for Queensland between 1900 and 1902, as he led his new state to a strong period of success against NSW.

Despite the hammering from Spragg, the state’s continued to select teams based on residency during the amateur rugby era.

© Sean Fagan

OLD SOUTH WALES RUGBY IMPRESSED NEW SOUTH WALES

Wales rugby: Gwyn Nicholls & Percy Bush

The first “golden age of Welsh rugby” were the pre WW1 decades. No Wales team visited Australia during that time, but their star players were part of early Lions tours, leaving a legacy on Sydney rugby via their innovation and flair.

written by Sean Fagan

Welsh teams in Australia have been a rarity. The first was in 1969, with a one-off game against the Wallabies at the SCG, shoe-horned into a vacant Saturday between the end of the Welsh team’s tour of New Zealand, and Australia flying out to South Africa.

Wales were reigning Five Nations champions, at the out-set of what would be the team’s second great era in international rugby. Though defeated by the All Blacks, no team with backs Gareth Edwards, JPR Williams and Barry John behind a formidable pack was going to be easy for Australia to contend with. In front of 27,000 spectators, the Welsh prevailed 19-16 in what was a game long recalled for its refereeing controversies.

Rugby in Wales had developed later than in the other Home nations, not playing its first international until 1881.

Less shackled to the old way rugby had been played, the Welsh were quick to take advantage of the change from a forwards dominated game, revolutionising the arrangement of players into just eight forwards and seven backs – the primary innovation was utilising four men in the three-quarter line.

The Welsh players placed greater reliance upon one another, and they combined with such success that in 1893 Wales won the ‘Triple Crown’ for the first time. England, and later Scotland and Ireland, much against their conservative nature, were forced to fall into line with Wales, and adopt the more modern game and the one that we play by today.

The “four three-quarter game” was still a mystery to rugby in Australia when the British Lions arrived in 1899. Rugby in Sydney had, largely unsuccessfully, imitated the systems used by New Zealanders. Great anticipation of seeing “the new rugby” and star Welsh centre, Cardiff’s Gwyn Nicholls, abounded.

In the UK it was Wales’ Arthur Gould who had first shown the greater advantages and possibilities of being a centre under the four three-quarter line system, but Welsh rugby did not reach the level of winning excellence until Nicholls’ arrival (making his debut in 1896). In Nicholls’ time the rugby footballers of Wales had come to be revered as the brightest, brainiest and most formidable exponents of running rugby that one could encounter.

By the end of the 1899 Lions’ tour, Nicholls was the team’s leading try-scorer, including two in the test series against Australia, and left such a convincing example of the merits of spectacular and successful open rugby with four three-quarters in the backs, that the following year all of Sydney club rugby and the NSW team converted to the new scheme.

Over the next few seasons Wales was the dominant team of international rugby. Apart from success in the Home Nations, the era is best remembered for Wales now famous victory over the 1905 All Blacks at Cardiff Arms Park , the visitors only defeat during their now legendary campaign.

Understandably the 1904 Lions to Australia and New Zealand boasted some of Welsh rugby’s finest names of the time: Rhys Gabe, Fred Jowett, Willie Llewellyn, Teddy Morgan, Percy Bush, Tommy Vile, Sid Bevan and Arthur Harding.

Such was the anticipation to see this Welsh-infused Lions team, that over 35,000 fans packed into the SCG for the opening tour game against the name-sake state, New South Wales.

What connection in 1770 Captain Cook saw between the land he proclaimed as “New South Wales” and Britain’s “South Wales” is a mystery. By coincidence, 130 years or so later, the centre of Welsh rugby was South Wales, and in Australia it was in New South Wales. In the late 1880s the NSW rugby team wore scarlet red jerseys emblazoned with a fiery Welsh dragon.

It was said that the secret to Wales’ success in the early 1900s was the combination brought about by choosing players that knew each others game so well – these players came from a core group of clubs in South Wales – namely Cardiff, Swansea and Newport.

As it turned out though the Welsh player most remembered from the 1904 Lions tour was stand-off half Percy Bush – a great individualist player. Bush arguably had far less international appearances for Wales than his talents deserved, primarily as the Welsh selectors put team combination as their foremost criteria.

As many of the scrum halves and No.10s that have come and gone on the international stage since Bush will attest, the balance between being a team-man and one playing a natural off-the-cuff game is often a dark abyss between rugby celebrity and career oblivion.

NSW and Australian selector in 1904, Jimmy Henderson, enthused about Bush after he led the Welsh on a 27-0 rout of NSW in that opening Lions tour game.

“As for what is termed five-eighth play, it was a revelation,” said Henderson, “Bush, in my opinion, outclassed for headiness, quite apart from individual effort, any other player I have seen in the position.”

“Some of his feint dodging to the open side and then wheeling to the blind side, racing at his top in order to gain position for his inside centre was excellence in itself. It tended to show, in conjunction with his excellent kicking, what possibilities there are in the rugby game for a versatile player, such as Bush proved himself to be.”

Bush also had tremendous and freakish drop kicking ability. He caused a minor newspaper sensation when he kicked an astonishing drop goal just five minutes into the Wales vs NSW game. Hemmed in near the touchline, seemingly without options and about to fall under a wash of light blue forwards, Bush drop-kicked the ball over the cross-bar.

After the game the newspapers published stories claiming that Bush had backed himself with bookmakers to kick a drop goal within ten minutes of the game starting. Naturally he denied all knowledge of it, but few believed him. No one though seemed too bothered. The Bulletin wrote “Nobody who knows football wondered at the denial. The mystery was how he did it, and not why he did it.” Others praised Bush for succeeding at his first attempt and only needing five minutes, not the full ten.

In the wake of the examples of the Welsh game, particularly Nicholls and Bush, the way rugby was played in Sydney dramatically changed, and proved enormously popular with the public. Club games often drew 25,000, rep football twice that number, and great individualist halves and centres including Chris McKivat and Dally Messenger became stars of the game.

Ironically, the successful adoption of Welsh rugby ideals on Sydney rugby provided a ready-made bed for the easier switch-over to rugby league, which in England had also changed to the four three-quarters model. Had the attempt to start league come earlier, the game on the field at least, may not have been so quickly accepted.

As for the Welsh no one doubts that with hard work and with their rugby resources success must from time to time inevitably come. As an Australian journalist prophetically wrote in 1913, at the close of Wales’ first golden era, “Rugby is part of a Welshman’s existence; It has grown into his very bones, so a revival is sure to come sooner or later.”

© Sean Fagan

MIGHT OF WALLABIES & ALL BLACKS COMBINED

First Australian team in 1899

The Wallabies made their debut 18 months before the nation of Australia was born – yet the original ambition in 1899 was not for an Australian team, but the combined might of ‘Australasia’ instead.

written by Sean Fagan

The NSWRU planned for a Test series to be played in Sydney between ‘Australasia’ and the touring Great Britain side. Given the four Home Nations had combined to send a team out, it was said at the time that it was only logical that they be tested in battle by the collective resources of Australasia’s three rugby-playing colonies (NSW, Queensland and New Zealand).

In 1899 there was still a strong possibility that New Zealand would join with the other colonies in forming the new Federated nation and parliament. Indeed, as many would be aware, the Constitution of Australia (written in 1900) includes provision for New Zealand as a member state.

In the early 1900s ‘Australasia’ teams competed in the Olympic Games, Davis Cup tennis and rugby league. The Roar columnist Spiro Zavos put forward the proposition that the 1908 Olympic gold medal won by the Wallabies in rugby could be equally claimed by New Zealand, as the team was officially entered as ‘Australasia’.

There was widespread public and newspaper support and agreement in 1899 for an ‘Australasian’ rugby team to be formed to meet the Lions. Many argued that putting Queenslanders into a NSW team to create a combined ‘Australia’ merely served to produce a weaker NSW team taking the field under another name. Adding New Zealanders would have the opposite effect.

Keen to ensure the popular ‘Australasia’ team came to reality, the NSWRU put separately to the QRU and NZRU “that her best players should come over here at the expense of the NSWRU to take part.”

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately depending on your view) what should have been a straight forward offer readily accepted, and perhaps the beginning of what would now be a century old tradition, got caught up in negotiations over other matches and lost.

As the hosts of the British team, the NSWRU controlled all match and tour arrangements, and were responsible for all expenses. If the QRU and NZRU hoped to hold matches against the Lions, they would have to negotiate financial terms and secure available dates with the NSWRU.

The NSWRU recognised that the longer the visitors were away from Sydney in Brisbane or Auckland, the less the Union’s overall income would be, and more vulnerable it would be if any of the remaining games’ attendances were affected by wet weather. The terms it sought with the other colonial Unions required that it be compensated for the lost income.

A short visit to Brisbane was readily agreed to with the QRU, however the more remote New Zealanders (five-days sailing from Sydney) found negotiations with the NSWRU far more demanding.

The NZRU sought to host a two-match visit. The NSWRU reasoned that by giving up two (at least) Sydney matches to allow the Lions to visit New Zealand, it would miss out on a further £1,200. The NSWRU advised the NZRU they would consent to the visit if they guaranteed £400, covered all accommodation costs and paid for the team’s return trip to and from Sydney.

The NZRU, who had nothing like the financial resources of the NSWRU, and no city the size of Sydney from which to draw comparable attendances and gates, could only offer a share from the matches in New Zealand. No agreement was reached, and the British visit to New Zealand was abandoned.

The New Zealand rugby community and public were incensed, with many wondering what the point of affiliation with other Unions was if decisions were to be made solely on financial grounds.

Seemingly oblivious to the offence it was causing across the Tasman, the NSWRU then put forward the idea that Sydney host a New Zealand vs Britain match at the SCG and split the gate with the NZRU.

Infuriated at their treatment, the New Zealanders decided not to send any players to Sydney for the Australasia team.

The Sydney newspapers expressed disappointment at the NZRU’s decision, stating that an international match between the combined colonies and the Lions “with New Zealand unrepresented is absurd from a purely football point of view.” The Sydney Morning Herald added that “this means the matches will be ‘Australia’ instead of ‘Australasia’ and that the team will only consist of NSW and Queensland players.”

The fall-out from the NSWRU’s treatment of the NZRU was the collapse of significant work and efforts that were in train to form an ‘Australasian Rugby Football Union,’ which was being pushed particularly strongly within New Zealand rugby.

Many on both sides of the Tasman believed rugby ought to be made more safe to play, attractive to watch, and make some concessions in regard to payments to players.

It was thought the formation of a combined Australasian Union, representing all the colonies, would have a far greater voice with the RFU in England and the International Rugby Board.

Failing that, an Australasian Union could standardise playing rules across the colonies, and, if it came to it, break away from the Unions in Britain, and follow a path to a new rugby code (akin to the evolution that was already well under way to what was once rugby in Canada and the USA).

However, as with the political movement to form a national Federation of all the colonies, the New Zealanders went their own way – the colony did not become part of the new nation, and rugby never got its Australasian Rugby Union (the Australian Rugby Union was founded in 1949).

It would be a gross over-stating of the situation to lay at the feet of the NSWRU the reason New Zealand did not join with the other colonies in the new Federation, but then, as now, rugby was dear to the heart of most New Zealanders. At the very least, the actions of the NSWRU didn’t help those in New Zealand advocating for the colony to be part of the Federation.

Immediately that the NZRU announced the Lions would not be touring, and that no players would be sent to join the ‘Australasia’ team, more than a dozen New Zealand footballers jumped on to steam-ships and hooked-up with Sydney rugby clubs.

Australian rugby had no residential rules – and the New Zealanders knew it. Once they took to the field, they qualified as Australians, and played in the hope of being selected for the Test team.

By the time Australia’s team for the fourth Test was chosen, with the home side desperate to square the series with a victory, the selectors had no qualms in choosing four New Zealanders, including 1897 representative Bill Hardcastle. In a manner of speaking, the NSWRU finally got its Australasia team.

In the aftermath the NZRU negotiated directly with the RFU to send a New Zealand team to Britain without any involvement of the Australian unions. That team and tour eventually came to reality in 1905, and became the famous “All Blacks”.

Their success ensured no one again put forward the idea of Australia and New Zealand rugby combining as ‘Australasia’ to play the Lions or mounting a tour of Britain.

For that, the Northern Hemisphere rugby nations are probably eternally thankful – a combined Wallabies-All Blacks touring team is not something they need to contemplate.

© Sean Fagan

“WHAT THE DEVIL WAS THAT FOR?”

British Lions 1904

While Scotland’s first match in Newcastle (Australia) was not until 2012, many Scots have played in the city with British Lions teams. None though rival the heated controversy and after-effect caused by Scotland Rugby Union Hall-of-Famer, David Bedell-Sivright.

written by Sean Fagan

Despite over-stated stories about the scale of Australian rules’ ‘Black Diamond Cup’, rugby was the dominant football code in Newcastle and across the Hunter through the last decades of the 19th century and into the early 1900s.

It wasn’t until late 1909, when widespread dissatisfaction with certain officials of the local rugby union bodies got caught up in industrial troubles in the region’s coal mines, coupled with the fall-out from 14 of the 31 players involved in the 1908/09 Wallaby tour swapping codes, that Newcastle switched allegiance to rugby league.

Such was the scale of support for league that Newcastle seceded from the Sydney premiership it had joined in 1908, and established a local four team Newcastle club competition.

The league game never looked back, and it is probably some indication of its support compared to the older code that it has taken just over a century for the city to be granted a match as significant as 2012’s Scotland-Wallabies international.

Of course, as is generally the case with any rebellion, the seeds of discontent have been simmering for some time beforehand. Though flashpoint was reached in 1909, a rugby match in 1904 between ‘Combined Northern Districts’ (representing Newcastle and the Hunter) against the touring British Lions – captained by Scotland’s David Bedell-Sivright – can be seen as the beginning.

It would be unfair to lay at the feet of Bedell-Sivright and his team the reason Newcastle became a league town – after all, amateur rugby union in a working-class city of the scale of Newcastle was always destined to fall to upon the arrival of a football code offering reasonable player benefits – however, the match and its aftermath lit a bonfire of outrage against rugby officialdom.

Newcastle rugby had long held a chip on its shoulder over selection of NSW and Australian teams, feeling that players from the region were not getting a fair shot at opportunities. Matches against touring teams from New Zealand or Britain (as well as Waratahs and Reds teams en route to Sydney or Brisbane for inter-state contests) were particularly looked forward to as opportunity to prove the worth and mettle of the Hunter’s best.

The 1904 British Lions would later encounter difficult opponents in New Zealand, but on this side of the Tasman they were cutting a swathe through the local teams, notching five easy victories, including the Waratahs (twice) and Australia, before arriving in Newcastle.

Twenty-three year old Bedell-Sivright was mid-way through a sterling playing career as a forward for Scotland. In 2010 he was included as one of 12 inaugural inductees into the Scotland Rugby Hall of Fame. He is still the only Scot to play in three Triple Crown winning sides (1901-03-07), and twice toured with the British Lions (1903 to South Africa & ’04).

One of the hardest men to ever play the game, in 1909, a century before Sonny Bill Williams and his faux pugilistic bouts, Bedell-Sivright ascended through the cut-and-thrust of the serious boxing ranks, drawing upon raw power rather than technique, he became Scottish heavyweight amateur champion.

Stories about his toughness are legion, but the most re-told is the day he is said to have once celebrated a famous victory by laying in the middle of a busy city street for an hour, then went to a cab rank whereupon he is said to have crash-tackled a horse to the ground.

Bedell-Sivright and his Lions faced ‘Combined Northern Districts’ at Newcastle’s ‘Rugby Union Ground’. The most notable inclusion n the home team was forward Pat ‘Nimmo’ Walsh, who had played for Australia in the Test defeat at the SCG just a few days earlier.

The Sydney Mail reported that “the Newcastle men with Walsh in the forefront were playing up [well], and were holding more than their own” against the British. Walsh was soon seen to collide with Lions’ Welsh winger Fred Jowett. The visitor landed so heavily on his head that, suffering severe concussion, he had to leave the field – with replacements not allowed, the British had to battle on with 14 men. The Lions weren’t convinced Walsh’s actions were a mere accident, but got on with the game.

The Sydney Sportsman noted that shortly after half-time, local referee Hugh Dolan awarded the home team a free-kick from a scrum: “The Britishers did not by any means like being penalised for their frequent recourse to a game at which they appear to be very apt, namely, funny business in the scrums.”

After Dolan gave the penalty, Lions and England forward Denys Dobson said, “What the devil was that for?” The referee promptly challenged Dobson for his remark, who apparently replied using indecent language. Dolan provided Dobson numerous opportunities to apologise, but he refused. The referee then ordered him to leave the field – it was the first time a British Lion had ever been sent-off.

Bedell-Sivright remonstrated with Dolan, got no satisfaction, so signalled to his men and the whole of the British team walked off the ground to the dressing room, amongst loud hooting from the crowd. He claimed the referee’s assertions cast a “reflection on the personal character of the team” and could not be allowed to pass without protest.

After twenty minutes of debate with local officials, Bedell-Sivright led his men, minus Dobson and the still injured Jowett, back onto the field. Well ,when the play resumed it was a very ‘vigorous’ game, especially amongst the forwards.

The Sydney Sportsman commenting “After the incident or accident, or whatever it was, the play was very willing, and some of the scrums were very good places to be out of.” The reporter adding “Pat Walsh performed brilliantly, but the visitors made a marked man of him, and tormented him all they knew.” The Lions eventually won the match 17-3.

In the aftermath, the NSWRU removed the investigation into the incident from the local Union and held its own inquiry. The NSWRU found that Dobson had used a hasty and improper expression in saying, “What the devil was that for?”.

Five of the Newcastle players, including Walsh, supported the referee’s allegation, and the reason for which Dobson was sent-off (that the player had also used an indecent expression). Bedell-Sivright, Dobson and other members of the Lions team denied that anything of the kind had been said at all.

The NSWRU took the side of the tourists, and inferentially found that the referee and the Newcastle players had made a mistake as the “indecent expression reported by the referee was not used by Mr Dobson.”

As to Bedell-Sivright leading the Lions from the field mid-match, and any penalty against Dobson for his improper expression, the NSWRU came to the conclusion that the incidents were so trivial as to not merit consideration. Nothing further was to be done.

The Newcastle rugby community were outraged that the NSWRU had sided with the Britishers instead of standing behind their own. They were dismayed that they hadn’t been believed, and worse, the NSWRU had ignored their evidence. Dolan gave up officiating on the spot, while the fuming players, publicly at least, bit their tongues and remained silent.

The situation in Newcastle deteriorated the following year when Walsh, despite excellent form for NSW, was left out of the Australian team to visit New Zealand. Many claimed it was retribution for his refusal to back down at the hearing into the 1904 Lions match. The treatment meted out to Walsh and Newcastle rugby generally was a recurring theme in meetings to establish rugby league in the city.

It was no surprise that Walsh himself later joined rugby league, becoming a member of the Kangaroos on their 1908 tour to Britain. At the end of the campaign he became the first Australian to sign with an English club, joining Huddersfield. During WW1 he served with the Australian 12th Light Horse at Gallipoli, Egypt and Palestine, before returning home.

Bedell-Sivright , who had qualified as a doctor, joined the Royal Navy and was also at Gallipoli in 1915. It was there that he was bitten by an unidentified insect, and despite medical attention, succumbed to blood poisoning.

The following year Dobson, working for the British government as a civil servant in what is now Malawi in Africa, was fatally gorged by a charging rhinoceros.

It may perhaps be an apocryphal after-dinner rugby story, but is claimed that upon Dobson’s old school master hearing the news of his demise famously uttered: “He always did have rather a weak hand-off!”

© Sean Fagan