Terracesider: SouthSydney Rabbitohs.
The 1914 Great Britain Tour Of Australia.
Since the first Kangaroos came to Great Britain in 1908, tours between the two countries have been a source of intense excitement and sometimes equally intense controversy, none more so than the 1914 Great Britain tour of Australia. This post outlines the main features of that tour: a bitter controversy; one of Rugby League's greatest ever matches; and an ignominious scandal.
According to the original schedule, GB were to play three tests against Australia: the first two at the Sydney Cricket Ground (27th and 29th June) and then, after one test in New Zealand (1st August), the third at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (15th August). The series began unexceptionally, the Lions winning the first test (23-5) and, with an injury-weakened side, losing the second (7-12). Then a controversy broke which is still alive today. For whatever motives, the Australians proposed bringing forward the third test to 4 July, a suggestion agreed to by the Northern Union authorities back in England without consulting the tourists. The British players and management were livid, suspecting the Australians had brought forward the game to take advantage of GB's injury problems: of the players from the first two tests, the tourists had lost two full backs, two wingers, a five-eighth and several forwards.
Despite the tourists' angry protests, the match went ahead. Before the game, an indignant John Clifford ( GB manager) famously addressed his team in their hotel, telling them they would have to play as they never had done before because it was not merely a football match, "... you are playing Right versus Wrong. You will win because you have to win, Don't forget that message from home: England expects every man to do his Duty'. Harold Wagstaffe, the England captain, later recalled that, 'The men in my team were moved. I was impressed and thrilled as never before by a speech. You could see our fellows clinching their fists as Mr Clifford spoke.'
There followed one of the greatest test matches ever played. In what has become known to history as the Rorke?s Drift Test, GB, leading 9-3 after 50 minutes but reduced by injury to 10 men, heroically clung on to win 14-6; but even the scale of their achievement, generously recognised by the crowd and the Australian press, did not lessen the players' feelings of injustice and, through a quirk of fate, opportunity for revenge soon presented itself. The Melbourne test was replaced by an exhibition match between GB and NSW, part of a peculiar, ill-fated plan to unify RL and Aussies Rules Football. However, the English were out for revenge and rather than a display of rugby skills, the Melbourne crowd were treated to a brutal free-for-all, replete with biting. Harold Wagstaffe later held it to be the dirtiest match ever played, a view endorsed by an Australian participant, the great NSW lock Peter Burge. 'I shall never forget,' Wagstaffe recalled, 'the sight of the two packs standing up to each other in some real all-in stuff, with a tremendous crowd cheering like mad because they thought it was all in the game.'
According to the Sportsman, a Sydney newspaper, 'From the outset it was evident there would be more fight than football. Those who love lash were not disappointed and those who love lurid language had a bean feast... the swear stream was strong enough to scorch the grass and set the pavilion afire. [The Referee]...ordered one of the cannibalistically inclined Poms from the field early on but backed down and let him stay. There was lingual lechery as loose in its morals as a vagrant tomcat and supporting the swear words was stoush.'
One Australian (Burge) suffered a broken jaw, another lost a mouthful of flesh out of the back of his neck 'big enough to feed a hungry man' and a third ended the day with a face 'that looked like it had been sandpapered with a curry comb.' After the game, the stoush continued though a drunken evening. As the Sportsman wryly commented, 'Even after the 'game', the two sides cold not bear to be out of each other?s company, and at night-time, outpost skirmishing was in evidence.'
Subsequently, the embarrassed authorities of both countries diplomatically buried these events, and the Battle of Melbourne remained conveniently forgotten until exhumed in 1994 by Ian Heads, the distinguished Rugby League historian and journalist.
Sources:
Rothman?s Rugby League Year Book 1982-83
http://www.rl1895.com/
http://rl1908.com/index.htm
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