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Discover NZ Rugby League

In New Zealand, Rugby League has been close to our hearts since 1907, and many New Zealanders feel a close connection to the game.

We love the brute strength, the skillset, the mental toughness… not to mention the loyalty and community that rugby league provides.

It’s a game many of us feel proud to call ‘our game’.

The History of Rugby League

Important dates

The first NZ Rugby League team - The All Golds

In 1905, the national rugby union team, the All Blacks, were touring Britain and caught some Northern Union matches.

They liked what they saw – it was a fresh take on rugby. Some of our boys were getting frustrated with the old-school English Rugby Union. They weren't keen on changing the rules or even helping out injured players.

That's when Albert Henry Baskerville and George Smith (the same George from that 1905 All Blacks tour) decided to shake things up.

They put together the first New Zealand Rugby League team – the All Golds. In 1907, they headed off to Australia and Great Britain to show what they could do.

But here's the kicker: the New Zealand Rugby Union wasn't happy. They banned these players for life!

The first Rugby League match in New Zealand

Sadly, Baskerville caught pneumonia in Brisbane on the way home and didn't make it. His mum organised a charity match in Wellington on June 13, 1908. And just like that, we had our first rugby league game on Kiwi soil.

Members of the All Golds then helped set up rugby league clubs all over New Zealand.

The first NZRL club game was played down in Southland, at Bluff, between Brittania and Pirates on July 22, 1908.

Why did Rugby League split off
from Rugby Union?

Rugby Union started in posh schools in England – you know, the kind where rich kids went. These schools taught that the game should be amateur (unpaid) – a nice idea if you've got the time and money to play for fun.

The game evolved with no formal rules until, in 1871, a group of southern English clubs formed the Rugby Football Union. These guys had some pretty clear ideas about who should play: basically if you couldn't afford to play, you shouldn't. They wanted to keep it as a game for the upper-class folks down south.

But by the 1880s, things were changing. Up in the north of England, in places like Lancashire and Yorkshire, rugby union had become a game for everyone. In these industrial cities, it was the highlight of the week – something to look forward to on a Saturday arvo.

Now, life wasn't easy for working people back then. They were dealing with long hours and dangerous work in mines and factories and lived in pretty rough conditions. Rugby was their escape, a chance to forget about the hard times for a while.

Here's where it gets tricky. Most workers did five 10-hour days, plus Saturday morning. That didn't leave much time for playing or watching rugby. Some miners couldn't even make it to the surface in time for a match. If they wanted to play, they'd have to leave work early, losing wages and risking their jobs.

In 1893, the northern clubs asked the Rugby Football Union if players could get some money back for the wages they lost while playing. The Rugby Football Union said no way and started making even stricter rules.

So, on August 29, 1895, 22 northern clubs had had enough. They met at the George Hotel in Huddersfield and formed their own group: the "Northern Rugby Football Union." All they wanted was to pay players for the time they missed at work.

This split never healed. To make the game more exciting, the Northern Rugby Football Union started changing the rules. They got rid of the line-out in 1897, banned kicking into touch (except for penalties) in 1902, and dropped the number of players from 15 to 13 in 1906. They also brought in the play-the-ball instead of rucks and mauls. All these changes were to speed up the game and make it more fun to watch.

That's how Rugby League became its own thing.

In 1922, the name was changed from "Northern Rugby Football Union" to "Rugby Football League" to align with what the new game was called in New Zealand and Australia.

So there you have it – the story of how rugby league came to be and why it's such a big part of who we are as Kiwis. It's a game born from standing up for what's fair, and that's something we can all get behind!

 

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