I suppose I should join their forum to respond. Someone styled as "huntos" is suggesting the NSWRU c.1908 leased all the major Sydney grounds, so they could then leave them to the use of rugby league and leave Australian rules out in the cold. The notion that RU & RL agreed to do anything in that period beggars belief - they hated each other. Aust rules had ground problems long before the NSWRL was born in 1907. The first NSWRL game (NSW v All Golds) in August 1907 put an Aust rules club game between the Newtown & Sydney clubs on the undercard. Giltinan had plans to merge RL with Aust rules, and met with the VFL in 1908. The bottom line was that both RL & Aust rules were kept off the best/biggest city grounds by the NSWRU leases. RL got the edge over Aust rules to get the next rung of grounds (such as the Showground) because the Sydney Aust rules was still an amateur sport, and didn't attract the crowds that RL did/could (so AR couldn't afford to hire them). Aust rules purchased its own ground at Rosebery in the early 1910s, but stuffed it up itself, and eventually had to sell it.
The SCG Trust (and indeed the NSWRU who held the lease) did allow the Aust rules to play major games on the SCG between 1903 and 1908. From 1908 to 1910, the Trust wanted to hold RL games, but the NSWRU refused to allow it (under its lease it could stop other users of the ground). In 1911, the RL got one game on the SCG on a Thursday public holiday when the Trust found a loophole in the NSWRU lease (it was only good for Saturdays and public holidays if they fell on a Monday).
