New Zealand’s first game of rugby

The crowd of Nelsonians gathered at The Botanics one May day in 1870 had no idea that they were witnessing the birth of a New Zealand tradition, rugby..... 

The 1873 Nelson Rugby Football Club. The Nelson Provincial Museum, Print Collection, 290552
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The first recognised and recorded game of rugby played in New Zealand took place on Saturday, May 14, 1870 between a Nelson College side and the Nelson Football Club. A crowd of around 200, including “a fair sprinkling of ladies and a goodly number of the opposite sex,” gathered at The Botanics to watch a new version of football, brought to New Zealand by Charles Monro.¹

The term football was used to cover many versions of a team game in which a ball was kicked. The move into rugby is said to have come when a student of Rugby School in England first picked up the ball and ran with it in 1823.² This crucial difference was adopted first by the school, and then universally, apparently because the school was the first to publish its rules, in 1845.³

Charles John Monro, 1930, [founder of Rugby Union in New Zealand], The Nelson Provincial Museum, Cooper-Sharp Collection, 223693/9
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Charles Monro, son of the then Speaker of the New Zealand Parliament, Sir David Monro, has been termed the “father of New Zealand rugby”.⁴ He played rugby as a student at Christ College, Finchley, England, and introduced the rules to the Nelson Football Club in January 1870. He suggested a match be played against Nelson College, whose headmaster, Rev. F.C. Simmons, was himself a former student of Rugby School, as were his two predecessor principals. This led to the historic match four months later.⁵

Each team had 18 players, a number agreed by the captains before the match, made up of 10 forwards, three half-backs, three three-quarters and two fullbacks.⁶ The college team was decked out in tight-fitting shirts and blue caps, while the “town” team sported street clothes, having no particular uniform.⁷

The Colonist of May 17 reported the “football” match, describing attributes of the game that signalled its difference from the traditional versions of football. “Now some player runs with it (the ball, apparently oval) and a general scrimmage ensues: it is all shove, pull, rush and roll about in a confused mass till ‘down’ is cried, and away the ball goes again till perchance it gets in touch or caught.” Later in the report, readers were told “the ball is ‘touched down’ behind the goal.”⁸

The town team won the game two - nil and everyone went home, apparently unaware of the significance of the spectacle: the first game of rugby in New Zealand had just been played.

Nelson College Rugby team 1876, Nelson College
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But, while the 1870 game is the first recognised game of rugby in the country, there are indications in the 1909 Nelson College Register of a rugby-like game being played as early as 1860. At this time the college was in temporary premises in Manuka Street, just four years after its establishment.

Students were taught the new game by two Anglican clergymen in Nelson at the time, Robert Codrington and Henry Turton, both Rugby School old boys. Records of the 1860 match, by a Nelson College old boy using the pen name “Scrum”, refer to “[players] down like ninepins” and “[the ball] over the bar”. This indicates a game like the one played at Rugby at the time. This sport did not become popular until a much later date,⁹ however.

It was much later that the game played in Nelson on 14 May 1870 game was officially recognised as the first organised game of rugby in New Zealand. It was the first game, officially recorded , which used the full rugby rules introduced by Monro, and also the oval ball.  Earlier games may have been like rugby, but probably did not apply all the new rules and probably used a round ball. Nelson is generally agreed to be the birthplace of New Zealand rugby.¹⁰

[2008]

Re-enactment of the first game of Rugby, 2011

As part of the Rugby World Cup Game On Festival in 2011, a re-enactment of the first game of Rugby was organised by Nelson City Council. The 18 a-side game, played at the Botanics on 20th September, 2011  re-enacted the original match between Nelson College and the Nelson Rugby Club. The Rugby Club team, captained by Chris Pugh, included 15 current players and 10 retired players; the Nelson College team was their current First XV. The game was played according to the "Rugby Laws"[PDF] for 1870, as introduced by Charles Monro.

Watch the game on Youtube.

 Updated: Apr 14, 2020

Sources used in this story

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