As you are all learned GPS followers in this thread I thought you may appreciate some rugby history (especially as Newington are celebrating their sesquicentenary this year).
Also tomorrow night during the Bledisloe game will be Sydney University putting on a demonstration game using 1800s rules and gear (as well as an old leather ball).
Commencementof Rugby In Australia
In 1870, Montague Arnold put an advertisement in a Sydney paper calling for assistance in forming a Rugby football club. Five men turned up to the first meeting being, M Arnold, RA Arnold, Septimus Stephen, Tom Brown, George Deas-Thomson and formed the Wallaroos Club. The imported the Gilbert No2 rugby ball and wore the colours a narrow red, white and blue hooped jerseys.
The Wallaroos were undefeated (playing 15 to allcomers 20-a-side teams) until 1877 when The Kings School old boys formed the Ex-Students team and beat them.
Rugby Clubs playing in the late 1880s included: Arforma, Parammatta, Moore College, Strathfield (formerly Burwood Club), Articled Clerks, Zealandia, Summer Hill Oaklands, Neutral Bay, Undergraduates.
Timeline
1823 W Ellis at Rugby picked up the ball and ran with it
1829 The Sydney Monitor reports a game of ‘football’ played at Sydney Barracks
1839 Rugby is played at Cambridge University
1840 The SMH reports a game of ‘football’ played in Sydney with frequent scuffles
1843 Guy's Hospital Rugby Club formed (England)
1854 Dublin University Rugby Club formed (Ireland)
1856 First organized game of Victorian Rules in Sydney
1857 Edinburgh Academicals, Liverpool Rugby Clubs formed
1858 Blackheath Rugby Club formed (England)
1861 Richmond and Sale Rugby Clubs formed (England)
1863 Richmond Rugby Club formed (England)
1863 Sydney University Football Club founded
1866 Harlequins Rugby Club formed (England)
1867 Wasps Rugby Club formed (England)
1869 The Wesleyan Collegiate Institution (founded Newington College 11 yrs later) played a game of ‘football’ against Sydney University (with 20 players aside)
1870 Wallaroos and The Kings School Rugby Clubs formed
1871 English Rugby Union formed
1872 Oxford and Cambridge Universities played their first game of rugby
1874 The Southern Rugby Football Union founded in Sydney. (This precedes the foundation of NZRU, Wales, Ireland and South Africa).
1877 Eight rugby clubs playing in Sydney (Wallaroos, University, Waratahs, Woolahra, Burwood, Ex-Students, Maitland and Newcastle.
Five Schools playing (Kings, Wesleyn Academy, Grammar, Camden College, Calder House)
1879 Rugby started to be played in Queensland
1880 Newington College is established
1892 AAGPS is founded
1893 Scots College and St Ignatious College commence playing rugby
1895 St Joesphs College enters the competition
1897 St Aloysius plays TKS
1904 AAGPS 2nd grade established
1906 Sydney High admitted to GPS
1907 St Ignatious College enters the rugby competition
1910 AAGPS 3rd grade established (suspended in 1961)