Sydney Cricket Ground - Australian Rules Football

Australian Rules Football

The first Australian rules football match to played at the SCG was Inter-Colonial football match played between Victoria and New South Wales on 6 August 1881.

Essendon and Melbourne played a premiership match at Moore Park in 1904 in front of the Governor General and Governor of NSW. Melbourne won and both teams had to return home by boat down the coast; two other matches (Fitzroy v Collingwood and Geelong v Carlton, which had been postponed) were also played there in 1903.

In the subsequent decades, the ground was rarely used for Australian Rules, except for the occasional exhibition match or interstate football carnival.

Richmond played Collingwood there in 1952, and eight VFL matches were played there in 1979-1981, but Australian rules football was not to make a regular comeback to the SCG until 1982, when South Melbourne relocated to Sydney and made the SCG its home ground.