Amateur Era
The NSWRU (or then, The Southern RU – SRU) was established in 1874, and the very first club competition took place that year. By 1880 the SRU had over 100 clubs in its governance in the metropolitan area. In 1882 the first New South Wales team was selected to play Queensland in a two-match series. NSW would go onto win both the games. That same year the first NSW touring squad was selected to go and play in New Zealand.
In 1907, several of the New South Wales rugby union team's players defected to play for the New South Wales rugby league team against a visiting rebel New Zealand rugby team. This was essentially the birth of rugby league in Australia.
During World War I, the NSW (and QLD) Rugby Unions ceased senior competition. The Queensland body however would not reform until 1929, which saw NSW have more responsibilities for Australian rugby. In 1921 the Waratahs toured New Zealand again, and out of their 10 fixtures, won nine games, including the Test.
The most famous Waratah team was the 1927/28 Waratahs who toured the United Kingdom, France and North America, introducing a style of open, running rugby never seen before, but which has been the stamp of the Australian game ever since. They won 24 and drew two of their 31 official matches. Seven members of this 1927/8 side were from the Drummoyne Rugby Club. Upon returning home, were greeted with a parade through Sydney and a reception at Town Hall. Matches against Queensland would soon resume also.
The 1930s were a particularly successful time for NSW. The height of the success of NSW is best represented by the defeat of the South African Springboks in 1937 at the SCG. NSW Rugby Union would also perform strongly throughout the following decades as well, which included the emergence of footballers such as Trevor Allan, David Brockhoff, Tony Miller, Nick Shehadie, Eddie Stapleton, Ken Catchpole, John Thornett, Peter Crittle and Ron Graham.
In 1963 the Sydney Rugby Union was established for the growth of the game in the city area. The NSW Rugby Union would celebrate its 100th anniversary in 1974. As part of the anniversary celebrations, a match was played at the SCG on 18 May against the All Blacks, though the Waratahs lost nil to 20.
Read more about this topic: New South Wales Waratahs
Famous quotes containing the words amateur and/or era:
“The true gardener then brushes over the ground with slow and gentle hand, to liberate a space for breath round some favourite; but he is not thinking about destruction except incidentally. It is only the amateur like myself who becomes obsessed and rejoices with a sadistic pleasure in weeds that are big and bad enough to pull, and at last, almost forgetting the flowers altogether, turns into a Reformer.”
—Freya Stark (1893–1993)
“The great pagan world of which Egypt and Greece were the last living terms ... once had a vast and perhaps perfect science of its own, a science in terms of life. In our era this science crumbled into magic and charlatanry. But even wisdom crumbles.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)