The most impressive aspect of the Lions victory over the stoic Waratahs was the manner of their five tries – all came through deft and sharp hand-passing of the ball.
It followed on from the ten tries in Newcastle, where only the last five-pointer came from an O’Driscoll grubber kick, and even that was an opportunity brought about by quick-fire hand-passes.
Unveiled by the Old Rugbeian Society in 1895, the famous bronze plaque at Rugby School pays tribute to William Webb Ellis who, in their words, “with fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time at Rugby School, first took the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus originating the distinctive feature of the Rugby game.”
However, given carrying and attempting to run away with the inflated pig’s bladder was the basis of many of the forms of folk football stretching back to Medieval times and earlier, as well as being part of Australian and Gaelic football, perhaps the credit, and indeed the innovation, is misplaced.
The truly distinctive feature of rugby football is not picking the ball up from the ground, nor is it running with it – what stands rugby apart is the hand-passing of the ball between teammates.
Passing or throwing of the ball, even handing the ball off to another, was not part of the game in Webb Ellis’ time, nor is it mentioned in Thomas Hughes’ celebrated account of a Rugby School football match in 1857’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays.
That’s not to say the early written laws of the game in the 1840s-60s banned it – they didn’t need to – the notion of tossing away the ball to another player was an affront to one’s manliness, akin to one running off in the face of danger.
While at Rugby School and England football traditions governed as forcibly as the written word, the devisors of the Melbourne FC’s rules in 1859 felt the need to add a final commandment: “The ball, while in play, may under no circumstances be thrown.”
Many have retrospectively, and wrongly, presumed this was done to rid the Australian code of a rugby trait.
Hand-passing of the ball in rugby football did not arise until after 1877’s reduction from 20-a-side teams to 15-a-side. It first began as short-passing and handing-off of the ball close-in among the forwards, led by the Blackheath FC in England.
In open field though a ball-carrier, whether a forward or a back, running with the ball would end their run with a drop kick at goal or for territory, rather than look to pass to a trailing teammate.
In 1882 at Oxford University under the captaincy of Harry Vassall, the ball was for the first time thrown from scrums to the three-quarter backs, who took advantage of the open spaces available to them.
It was quickly seen that the backs running upfield and utilising hand-passing could make tremendous gains in territory and run across the goal-line for tries.
This was the arrival of the truly distinctive feature of the rugby game.
As revealed in The First Lions of Rugby book, the 1888 British Lions brought this revolution in rugby to the playing fields of Australia and New Zealand:
“Before 1888 there were the old ways of rugby. After 1888 there were the exciting and revolutionary new ways of rugby. People would arrive before a game believing one rugby philosophy and leave two hours later mesmerised by an entirely new understanding of the possibilities. There was no going back to old ways, there was no slow evolution. The game dramatically, radically, and irrevocably changed for the better – for both the player and the spectator.”
Australian rules football had been making significant gains in NSW and Queensland as a spectator sport through the 1880s. However, the way the 1888 Lions moved the ball about the field in co-ordinated hand-passing made the code much more spectacular to watch, replacing the all-scrummaging mixed with solo runs game of the past that enthused few other than the players.
During 1888 Melbourne’s The Argus spoke against allowing passing the ball with hands and not feet, reminding its readers “the game is football, and not handball.”
Of course, Australian rules did not stick rigidly to the 1859 rule prohibiting throwing the ball, and while some will argue throwing and passing the ball are different things, both use the hands and not the feet.
From the early 1880s ‘hand balling’ (knocking the ball out of the ruck or to move the ball forward by punching it) appears in match reports, and the trait has been on a slow evolutionary path towards a ball-running and hand-passing game that today sees the kick-to-handball ratio in AFL on near equal terms.
At what ratio a code moves from being classed as ‘foot-ball’ to ‘hand-ball’ can never be answered – none of the football codes absolutely deny use of the hands in moving the ball, not even soccer.
Rugby is not handball, but when you see the inter-play, combination, switches and variety of passes (wide or close-in) shown by the Lions on Saturday night, you have to be glad rugby’s greatest innovation was not William Webb Ellis running with the ball.
[roar_cat_gal]
Bill
Guest
Hear hear Sean, hear hear!!! There has never been a truer word spoken on the game. The 10m rule (and the myriad of disastrous rule changes it has since prompted) is the scourge of rugby league and why we are left with the boring, and bastardised game that we have today. Bring back the 5m and contested scrums!!
Sean Fagan
Expert
The introduction of the 10m rule was the greatest blunder in RL rule-making history. It was pushed, believe it or not, by England in 1993 after the British team had gone very close to beating the Kangaroos in Ashes series in 1990 & 92, and within a try of winning the 1992 WC final - their theory was the increased separation between attack/defence would give their halves more time & space to be creative with the ball against the bigger Aust pack, especially backrowers. The RLIF adopted the change (the ARL didn't object). All of which ignored men like Tommy Bishop who pointed out, as in RU, nothing happens in the game until the defence & attack meet - so keeping them further apart just made for wasted energy & the false impression something was happening. The logic is absurd...every time the defence does its job (tackling a ball-carrier), it is immediately punished by being forced to give up 10m! So, it didn't take long to work out that fitness would matter more then creativity, and that dummy-half runs & hit-ups were the best way to make ground...and then England/Britain team got flogged even more over the next decade, and the bottom fell out of international RL as a result. The 10m rule also gave us wrestling, 'dancing' with ball-carriers to hold them up, shoulder charge runs with 10m momentum up instead of 5m, and misguided officials & commentators who somehow concocted the view that the change from 5m to 10m was to not create space, but to speed up the game. Men like Frank Hyde were ignored - he argued that the 10m was already there if you fairly enforced the rules, and kept both the defence and attack back 5m from the play-the-ball. Hyde was, unsurprisingly, correct - and with two referees in use today, you could actually properly adopt that rule...but no one in RL will ever have the gumption to admit the 10m rule was a mistake, that is the cause of many of the game's present blights, that speeding up the game doesn't make it better, and the 5m+5m rule should be gone back to. If you see a NSW Cup or QLD Cup game on tv, or even the Aboriginal knockout games, record them...then play it back at 1.5x, 2x, whatever speed suits your taste, it won't look any different to taking a NRL game & slowing it down...which is sad, as the Aboriginal knockout games were once where you saw the most adventurous RL ball-passing game.
Bakkies
Guest
You see more running in the Super League and teams are prepared to run it on the last. The NRL hardly makes the main pay tv sports channels over here. The rules have a lot to say in the change in League skill sets. The 10 metre and 12 sub rule has allowed back rowers (and even centres) to switch to the front row to make easy big metre gaining hit ups all game. They don't have to scrummage either so the Sam Backo type props aren't really needed. No contesting of the ball by the marker and only one on one steals has led to the tackle player take ball security for granted. The 40/20 rule encourages teams to kick the ball away even earlier. Yes you may get the ball back if it goes out over the 20 metre line but the probability isn't high.
abnutta
Guest
I once watched a documentary that lauded the passing of a rugby ball as perhaps the finest manifestation of teamwork in all of sport. That the pass itself is imbued with notions of support, a movement that does not die but continues on in the next generation, a torch taken up by the next bearer etc.
WRM
Guest
I wasnt aware your criteria ruled out movements against broken play or if a kick was involved.
Sean Fagan
Expert
Not in terms of purely ball-passing plays for tries. AB's first try was a kick-chase, second against a broken defence from a turnover, third was a great try that included a long kick.
WRM
Guest
The masterclass was in the game beforehand by NZ.
Well that to me has always been strange, he was the playmaker in their close defeat against SA in the 2011 RWC.
Jiggles
Roar Guru
The skill level in league has gone down the toilet. You only need to watch some of the classic 80s and 90s games on fox to realise this. Back then there were all sorts of moves being implemented off the scrum and in the set. Today it really is just hit ups with the 9, 6 or 7 passing it. The only variation is the once in a blue moon second man play which results in everyone wetting themselves and the defensive line falling to bits.
Bakkies
Guest
Not code bashing here but the passing in League is woeful. With the amount of space that is offered in league it bugs me that they use spiral passing rather then spinning it. In the '90s you could watch Ricky Stuart pass and kick all day but he was brought through a Rugby school and Aus squads. Pretty sure he was a scrum half but I would have had him as a flyhalf due to his vision and kicking.
Bakkies
Guest
The odd thing is that in the Wales set up Davies is renowned as a non passer. He may end up playing 12 on Saturday.
Geoff Parkes
Expert
Hi Sean Certainly agree about the quality of the Lion's passing and thanks for framing it in that historical context.
Jim Boyce
Guest
Sheek - It would be great to see more airplay to an article like Sean's. Passing is one of the most important skills of the game. I think the use of the spiral pass is good because it increases the length of the pass you can deliver but it has its limitations in that it needs to be delivered at a certain height and if you haven't got that right, you are offering the tackler a great shot to make havoc. Passing is one of the strengths of rugby in the USA where so many of the players are or have been into basketball . They have a greater awareness of the weight of the pass and where it is delivered. Unfortunately there are a lot of other areas of rugby where they are innocents abroad. The introduction of 7s into the 2016 Olympics could be very interesting depending on whether the university Athletic Departments release their players. Considering the importance of their football games to the finances of all sports at the university, that could be problematical. It was said that a lot of the French players had had basketball experience but I have never seen that confirmed I think the passing of the Waratahs has been hopeless and I hope they learn something from this tour.
Boz
Guest
+1
sheek
Roar Guru
Hi Sean, With regards to 1909, while the loss of Dally Messenger hurt rugby, it was the loss of the skill & experience of Chris McKivat, Paddy McCue, Boxer Russell, Tosser Barnett & Darb Hickey that really hurt even more. That was five very good players to lose. Plus the momentum of losing 14 players considered important to rugby at the time, irrespective of how they all eventually went in league. Unfortunately, the other key players in Australian rugby didn't hang around long either, except for Possum Wood. Tom Richards was a traveling troubadour. His challenger for best forward of the period, Jim Hughes, only played two tests (1907) before concentrating on being a doctor. Ward Prentice retired early, as did Syd Middleton to concentrate on rowing. Dan Carroll went off to the States. Strong prop Charlie Hammand concentrated on his medical studies, while Phil Carmichael was unwanted after the 1908/09 tour. And apparently & arguably the best pre-WW1 back of all, Bob Willcocks, was prevented from representing Australia by his pious father, who demanded his place was on the sprawling Qld outback farm, helping the family. Heck, how I wished sometimes Australian rugby could have been as "smart" as NZ & SA back then in the way they handled amateurism!!! Under different circumstances, the following XV could have taken on NZ in 1910: Larry Dwyer, Boxer Russell, Dally Messenger, Darb Hickey, Herb Gilbert, Ward Prentice, Chris McKivat (c), Syd Middleton (vc), Jim Hughes, Tom Richards, Paddy McCue, Paddy Murphy, Charlie Hammand, Tom Griffin, Harry George. Bench: Dan Carroll, Bob Willcocks (only 18), Possum Wood, Norm Row, Bob Craig, Tosser Barnett, Jim Clarken. Now that would have been a team to give the All Blacks a run for their money & fire the imagination of rugby fans. If only.....!!! But you're right - it's the action on the field that counts in the end.
Stu Wilsons Gloves
Guest
Hi Sean, Another fine article from you, I think you have really developed as a historian in my time coming across your work on the internet. At first you seemed to be another rugby league internet warrior and you conclusions seemed to be pre-coloured by your affiliation to your chosen code – in this case rugby league. But I have noticed like good a historian you now let the evidence speak for itself and contextualize the inherent bias in your sources.I also think your understanding of the construct of these times has matured and I find you a better write and more informative for it. As a classical scholar myself I can relate to your analysing of foundation/creation myths, it is always a difficult construct to break down, especially when so many different entities have a stake in it, and how they portray themselves derives from these constructs. I look forward to reading more of your work in future and I think that I speak for many other people out there who have an interest in the origins and creations of all our different codes, that we really appreciate your work. Cheers
Blinky Bill of Bellingen
Guest
Well said. They do make it look simple don't they? I'm amazed at the speed that they get back to their feet after the tackle and challenge for the ball.
Sean Fagan
Expert
Cheers Sheek. Fact is people relate better to the act of an identifiable talisman creationist, rather than a slow evolution that gives us no individual to applaud, honour & revere. Abner Doubleday in baseball, Walter Camp in gridiron, Tom Wills in AFL...the list goes on & on. Ironically with soccer, you can pin down its birth & founders to the FA forming in 1863, but the code invariably wants to portray itself as ancient, even though rugby is the more rustic brother of folk football than the refined & higher evolved "no hands" restrictive game - all of which presents a further problem with the Webb Ellis myth, as many wrong presume football in 1823 at Rugby School was soccer, even though it would not be invented for another 40 years. By coincidence, IRB boss been discussing same matter (Webb Ellis) over the weekend, & may in part answer your first question. https://twitter.com/brettgosper/status/345925456844947456 I don't agree with your summation re 1909 & the Wallabies. The NSWRL didn't sign them, a private promoter did for a 3-game series. Fact is the players wouldn't have taken the money if RL was as fragile as you have supposed. Of the 31 Wallabies involved with the 1908/09 tour, 14 signed to play against the Kangaroos. The remaining 17 Wallabies were hardly the second-rate members of the tour party & left RU with plenty of stars: Tom Richards, Norm Row, Ward Prentice, Philip Carmichael, Bede Smith, Syd Middleton, Danny Carroll, Fred Wood, Tom Griffin and the team's captain 'Paddy' Moran were all highly regarded and popular footballers. Of the original 31 Wallaby tourists, only eight provided a significant contribution to rugby league: John Hickey, Charles Russell, Chris McKivat, John Barnett, Robert Craig, Albert Burge and Paddy McCue. The other six converts made few or even no appearances with Sydney clubs: William Dix 0 games, Edward Mandible 2, Charles McMurtrie 14, Kenneth Gavin 0, Peter Burge 9 and Edward McIntyre 0. As with creation myths, sports also seem to like stories that portray them as victims when they lose out to another code. In every area of NSW, QLD & NZ that Aust rules lost or never got hold of, you will find an excuse given, of nefarious acts that wrongfully robbed the code of opportunity. In the end, then as now, its all about the game on the field, to play or to watch, that drives success and failure and profitability.
sheek
Roar Guru
Hi Jim, The Combined Country game was also the first game in which I have had a good look at the Lions. The few old heads I was having dinner with at the pub all were impressed by the accurate passing of the Lions. The ball placed in front of the receiver at catchable height & distance. This is how we were coached as kids, be it 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago - ball in front of the receiver at waist height or thereabouts, but most importantly, so that the receiver is running onto the ball. You could be forgiven for thinking the Lions had rediscovered a lost art, but it was pleasing to see the basics being done so well.
sheek
Roar Guru
So Sean, As you and others continue to demonstrate the more you research history, the greater the folly in attributing William Webb Ellis as the originator of rugby union. So why do we continue with the lie? Or is it simply easier to attribute the birth of a sport to an individual rather than a set of circumstances? Interesting that football (soccer) doesn't pretend to have one person who originated the game. It evolved over many decades with many different people, institutions & clubs adding their bit to the final product. Leagueis will say 'ad verbatim' that rugby league began in Australia in 1907/08 with the signing of Dally Messenger. As if attributing the name of a person to a sport gives it its legitimacy. Yet league was on its knees in 1908 & 1909 & it was only the signing of 14-15 Wallabies recently returned from their British Isles tour that finally turned the tide in league's favour. I've asked before why we continue to name the Rugby World Cup after a person whose deeds are universally considered doubtful? I can only guess it's because we have this desire to name things after someone. Even someone who's a proven myth (not the person, but his supposed deed). Love the article, by the way. This is the part of history I love - as you learn more about the past, you then have the ability to explain its occurrences better. And better understand its connection to the presence. You have evolved with the William Webb Ellis story from your original articles on RL1908. It's been fascinating & rewarding to follow.