Amanda Smith: Today, Kiwis and Wallabies, and an historic rugby match in a place where "football" normally means a whole different game.

Hi, I'm Amanda Smith, and on The Sports Factor we're talking rugby, the Bledisloe Cup and trans-Tasman sporting traditions.

Now, the significance of tomorrow's Australia-New Zealand Bledisloe Cup match is that it's being played for the first time in Melbourne, where Aussie Rules rules far and away above any other football code.

And later in the program, we'll delve into some of the reasons why particular codes became dominant in particular places: Rugby Union in New Zealand, Rugby League in Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT, and Australian Football in the rest of this country.

Before that though, the mighty All Blacks, and rugby, New Zealand style at the Melbourne Cricket Ground:

HAKA

Sean Fitzpatrick: I think it's great, there's obviously a lot of interest in the game and we're looking forward to it. It's an occasion that no rugby player has ever performed on a stage like that before. And one that we're looking forward to in terms of playing in a state where Rugby Union's not a major sport. That doesn't worry us at all. It's another venue, and it's a fabulous venue obviously, and we're playing against Australia. It's a Test match, so to win, we won't lack for motivation that's for sure.

John Hart: I mean, it's a great rugby occasion. I think rugby as a game is on a great roll, and I'm delighted that the Victorian state have taken the opportunity of getting the game here. I think it's great. I think it's great for a wider audience than the 95,000 or 100,000 that will see it. It's a great television audience and I commend the Australian Union and the state for putting the game here. Forgetting what the sport is, you know, if you can get 100,000 people to a game of rugby, the game's in pretty good shape. In a non-rugby state.

HAKA

Amanda Smith: All Blacks Coach John Hart and Captain Sean Fitzpatrick. And the famous haka.

The Bledisloe Cup was first contested in 1931. It was named after the Governor-General of New Zealand at the time, Lord Bledisloe. And according to Shaun Luttrell, who's the Editor of Rugby 97 magazine, tomorrow night's expected crowd of around 100,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground will be not only the largest over the 66-year history of the Bledisloe Cup, it'll be the biggest-ever rugby attendance in the Southern Hemisphere:

Shaun Luttrell: Oh without a doubt, without a doubt. The biggest crowd so far in Australia for a rugby match was in 1905 interestingly, between New South Wales and the All Blacks, when interest was at a real fever pitch, and 49,327 people (I think, off the top of my head) were attracted to that game. I think the biggest crowd we've had at a Test match in Australia has been 48,000 and I'm not sure of the figures in New Zealand. But without a doubt, this looms as being the largest crowd ever in the Southern Hemisphere.

Amanda Smith: What about globally though?

Shaun Luttrell: Globally it's a bit of a hot topic at the moment, because there is a figure going about of 104,00 to 106,000 people at Murrayfield in 1975. But this is a bit of a debatable topic because the Scottish Rugby Union was a little bit concerned about the crowd figures on the day and how the authorities were reacting to it, so they dropped it promptly to 80,000. So nobody really knows what the true figure was there. Now I've spoken to somebody who was at that game and he did say that it was definitely 100,000 plus, but I don't think anybody really knows what that number was.

Now I think if the ARU really want to push its marketing along, it could really lay claim to being the largest crowd in history, their largest official crowd in history.

Amanda Smith: Well it's ironic then that this game will be played in alien rugby territory, in Melbourne, where Australian Football does predominate over everything else.

Shaun Luttrell: It is. It's interesting though that rugby does have a pretty good presence in Melbourne and Victoria, it's just a very little realised one, which is a shame. And I think a match like the Bledisloe Cup will go a long way to boosting its profile. I think there's something like 4,000 to 5,000 players in Victoria, and Victoria was once a very dominant state in Australian rugby during the 1930s, and regularly beat Queensland and New South Wales in interstate competitions. It's just unfortunate it's been completely overshadowed by Aussie Rules.

The Victorian state has produced a lot of good footballers over the years, into the ranks of the Wallabies, and the greatest of those perhaps is 'Weary' Dunlop, the best known. But the ranks of the current Wallabies are certainly graced by Victorians: Ewan McKenzie this year, who is Australia's most-capped prop is a born and bred Victorian. And he was playing in the front row when he played last against England. Unfortunately he was dropped for this match, but interestingly they've put Andrew Heath in, who was another born and bred Victorian. Both of those players learnt their rugby in Victoria, and moved to Sydney in the early '90s to further their careers. So for a state that doesn't have really much of a presence on the rugby stage in Australia, it's doing pretty well for itself.

Amanda Smith: Shaun Luttrell, who's the Editor of both Rugby '97 magazine, and the rugby Test match programs, as well as a rugby writer for various British and South African publications.

HAKA/MUSIC

Commentators: Here comes the clearance. Deflection all the way. Sells the dummie. Try! You beauty. Sean Fitpatrick! Put up your number 2 spinnaker Pete, down there, the New Zealanders need it. Two points up, no tries, it's all gone. Mehrtens' boots...

POKAREKARE ANA

...21-16, two minutes to play. The Bledisloe Cup could be heading back this side of the Tasman. Olo Brown exhorting his fellow forwards, "Get up there and get your mits on that ball!"...

POKAREKARE ANA

...They haven't got the gas left for the quick throw-in. Nick Farr-Jones looks absolutely shagged as he wanders back to the touchline. And it's all over, the Bledisloe Cup is back in New Zealand! A 15-point win for the All Blacks is complete, they've beaten the world champion Wallabies by 25 points to 10 after they led by 9 to 3 at half-time...

POKAREKARE ANA

Amanda Smith: Some Bledisloe Cup highlights from the past there - highlights for New Zealanders at least!

Now, David Moffett is the Chief Executive of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union. An Australian actually, and former head of the New South Wales Rugby Union. And from the point of view of world rugby, David Moffett says tomorrow night's match is a biggie:

David Moffett: Melburnians will be turned on by it. Because one thing that I do know, being an Australian, or an ex-Australian, is that Melburnians will watch quality sporting events. And I think the fact that there's been a sell-out, there is an understanding that this is a quality sporting event.

Amanda Smith: Well with the Rugby World Cup well and truly established now every four years, and with South Africa back in international competition, how significant is the trans-Tasman contest of the Bledisloe Cup these days?

David Moffett: Oh, hugely significant. I think there is no doubt though still the biggest game that New Zealand plays would be against South Africa. But that's been lessened in recent years when South Africa wasn't in the international arena and the Bledisloe Cup came to mean so much more. Because in the mid-70s, Australia started to win. And of course that's what competition is all about, in getting even competition is what people want. If there's a little bit of doubt about the outcome, then people will go and watch it. And I think there's some 12,000 Kiwis flying across to watch this game, and then there's going to be a whole lot more Kiwis that are going to get into it. I know the Australian Rugby Union has endeavoured to try and keep this as much Australian as possible, but the Kiwis love the All Blacks and they'll get in there somehow.

Amanda Smith: Yes, well given that the All Blacks have won far more Bledisloe Cup matches than the Wallabies, something like 60 to 21, is the Bledisloe Cup more important to New Zealanders than Australians?

David Moffett: I think it's of equal importance. I think if you asked the average Australian, they would say that the Bledisloe Cup is hugely important. I've been reading in the media where the coach, Greg Smith, who I know very well, has been saying that the target obviously is to beat the All Blacks: the measure of where the Wallabies are is if they can beat the All Blacks. And of course to a Kiwi, winning the Bledisloe Cup means a great deal as well. So I think it's of equal importance, and it's of huge importance in world rugby terms. I think it certainly rivals anything in the northern hemisphere. It's been built on a large history, but also, we mustn't forget, that this is a Tri-nations game and so therefore points in this game are vital in terms of that competition.

Amanda Smith: How much has the professionalisation of rugby (until two years ago really, rugby was of course the last bastion of amateur sport) - how much has that professionalisation changed the organisation of rugby?

David Moffett: Well it's changed the face obviously of the game. I think it has given us some opportunities to take the game to a broader spectator base around the world, and I think we're doing that quite successfully. But at the same time it has provided that tension, because the overwhelmingly still amateur part of the game sort of says "Well hang on, don't forget us. Where is the money for the development of the game?". And we've got to be very careful that we do actually quarantine enough funds to ensure that the game develops, so that everybody can still play it for recreation. Because let's face it, we've got almost a unique game now, in that we still cater for players of all sizes, shapes, weight, ages, and there's not too many sports that are like that now. And so that's very important to us.

Amanda Smith: But organisationally, there must have been big shifts for example in the need to garner money from television rights and sponsorships in order to pay those top-level players, that must have impacted organisationally?

David Moffett: It was the main reason why we went out and did the deal with Murdoch for the money, was to keep our players, to stop them from going to Super League and what have you. And I think we did that very successfully because there have been no defections to League since we went professional. But by the same token, we can't lose sight of where those players are developed. And I think that's also what sets us apart from League. I mean you know, they're in disarray at the moment. We were able to learn from the mistakes that they made when - obviously there was a fight between the ARL and Super League - and I think we've got the balance right. But it is terribly important that we keep it that way.

Amanda Smith: In New Zealand, before rugby did professionalise at that top level, why was the amateur rugby still always more popular and successful than the professional rugby league?

David Moffett: Because rugby started a long time there before league did. And it's a sport, unlike most other parts of the world where rugby's played, where it's played across the length and the breadth of the country. I mean it is part of the fabric of society, and one of the reasons we take rugby Super 12 matches around the provinces is that we have a philosophy of taking the game to the people. And it's been very successful, when you have a look at the success of the Hurricanes and the Chiefs and the Blues, the Crusaders and the Highlanders. And I'm not quite sure that it actually exists like that anywhere else in the world, including Wales, which it most likely approximates. It's part of the history of the country. The All Blacks I would argue are most likely the most successful export New Zealand's ever had. In New Zealand terms, the All Blacks are a super brand. In rugby terms they're a super brand and it has a very special place in all Kiwis' hearts.

Amanda Smith: David Moffett, Chief Executive of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union.

And there will be plenty of Kiwis at the Melbourne Cricket Ground tomorrow night, including New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger, and Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Winston Peters. Along with their Australian counterparts John Howard and Peter Costello, I believe. An opportunity for a bit of rugby diplomacy, maybe, after a week of leaked reports where Australia's relations with New Zealand have been just a little bit strained. Will they be talking rugby defence strategies, or government defence strategies, I wonder?

CROWD BOOS

Commentator 1: Well there'll be a few questions asked Warwick, because the defence was there, wasn't it? The defence was across there.

Commentator 2: The defence really sort of had it. Maybe just a little bit of communication lacking. But they executed it well and the points are on the scoreboard.

Amanda Smith: Now to 'football' more broadly speaking. While there's tomorrow's big rugby game in Melbourne; while Sydney and Brisbane teams are doing well in the Australian Football League; and while teams from Perth and Adelaide are now playing in the Super League competition, let's not forget that these are very recent breaches of an old divide about which brand of football is traditionally played in which place.

Thomas Hickie is the author of 'They Ran with the Ball - How Rugby Football began in Australia' and Robert Pascoe is the author of 'The Winter Game - The Complete History of Australian Football'. And they've got some theories about why rugby, and later rugby league, began in Sydney while Aussie Rules grew out of Melbourne, creating a divide in Australia that Rob Pascoe calls The Barassi Line:

Robert Pascoe: That's right, it's an idea that came from the late Ian Turner, who was Professor of History at Monash University here in Melbourne, and used to teach a particularly peculiar form of football history. But Ian had the idea that there was this great cultural rift through the continent - although Australia was homogeneous in most ways - that on its western side, in a line running from Arnhem Land down through Birdsville, Canberra, and through southern New South Wales, we played Australian Rules Football, and the other side of course they played various codes of rugby.

Amanda Smith: Well let's look at some of the reasons why in Australia, where there perhaps aren't huge cultural or linguistic differences, or at least there certainly weren't among colonial settlers, why there is this divide over football codes? Tom, let's look first at the development of colonial rugby, and the particular social conditions around that.

Thomas Hickie: Sydney really didn't take off rugby-wise until the 1860s; there were games in 1829, there were games recorded in 1840. But really it wasn't till the late 1860s, and then in the 1870s. And one of points I'd probably differ with Rob about is that in fact Melbourne with Australian Football in 1858 and then through the 1860s; Sydney's problem with rugby and why it wasn't a football code really until the mid-1870s, was issues over town planning and also issues that there was no suburban culture in Sydney as much as there was much earlier in Melbourne.

Robert Pascoe: Yes, I think the first thing to say is that Sydney is a much older city than Melbourne, and people forget that now, but it's 50 years older. And 50 years in the history of the British experience was a long time. When Sydney was founded in 1788, Britain was going through a massive convulsion, an industrial revolution, and its society was in turmoil and its elite was using very despotic means to maintain control. So the whole sort of experience in Sydney in the early days was really this kind of what one historian called a sort of haemorrhage of people from the United Kingdom. So it's a society where pomp, ceremony and fairly kind of, what we would think today, as fairly autocratic means of government were used to keep people in check.

Melbourne on the other hand, began in the 1850s, or it took off in the 1850s as a sort of liberal democratic gold rush society. So they're quite different places, in the same way that say, San Francisco is very different from New York. And so I think that in that period in the 1850s, 1860s, when people were developing organised sport, the people in Melbourne had a different idea of how they wanted to spend their Saturday afternoons. They wanted to watch a game which was fast, free-flowing, didn't involve much man-to-man tackling. It was very much an individual's game and picked up, I think, the ethos of the city.

In Sydney however, my argument goes that rugby league in particular became popular later in the century because it seemed to reflect the dominant values of that city's political culture. So I see sport very much as a kind of a, not just an entertainment, that's the key thing - it's not just us going along and being entertained on Saturdays, it's also being richly informed about who we are as people. And so historians have always talked about the Sydney-Melbourne differences, and this I think is just one of them, that the two sets of people enjoyed quite different codes of football.

Amanda Smith: Well Tom, would you like to come in there?

Thomas Hickie: I agree somewhat with what Rob is saying. And people forget that Melbourne, even though in my youth in the 1960s, people thought of Melbourne, and Ronald Ryan being hung, as a very conservative place, with Henry Bolte, and it was considered the home of the Liberal Party. People forget, as Rob's touched on, that Melbourne of the 1850s was where the eight-hour day was won for stonemasons in 1856, it's the home of the trade union movement, it's the home of a lot of things that have been happening in the liberalisation of Australian democracy.

At the same time, where does New Zealand fit in? Because New Zealand was - and it's still in the Australian constitution supposed to be the extra State coming in - people forget that in Otago in the 1870s with the gold rushes, Australian football was the game. And it became very close, the vote between taking up Aussie Rules or rugby.

Amanda Smith: Tom, is there a particular class situation existing in colonial Sydney that makes a difference to the football code?

Thomas Hickie: Well yes, Amanda. What happened in Sydney, the rugby administrators - it was a rugby elite, who played rugby, they went to some of the main schools, the King's School at Parramatta, Sydney Grammar, and they went to the University of Sydney. There was a small group of people running the game. What did happen in the 1870s as the suburbanisation of Sydney started to take off, some of the clubs - you only had a few, there was one at St Leonard's - were gentlemen's clubs, compared to Australian football: Carlton, 1864, Geelong, arguably 1859. There were the suburbs that made for greater mass spectator interest. I think after a few years the first crowd of 10,000 was recorded. Now in Sydney, such crowds were unheard of until the 1880s.

What did happen from there, a narrow-based elite ran the game in Sydney. The big argument only happened when the suburbanisation took off and you had clubs at Redfern and Randwick and as the suburbs developed, more middle-class people came into the game, lower classes came in. And that's when the split happened, eventually in rugby in the early 1900s; they brought in a district competition because they had seen what was going on in Melbourne. But they didn't have the same clubs, they had Eastern Suburbs. Now Eastern Suburbs could take anywhere from Vaucluse down to Coogee, it's not a strong suburb base. Whereas it's interesting, clubs such as South Sydney Rugby League Club had a much stronger base, or Randwick Rugby Football Club had a much stronger suburban base.

In New Zealand - and one of the secrets, I think of New Zealand sport is a person can play for a small club and represent New Zealand. In Australia if you're playing for Harlequins for example in Melbourne, you will never play for Australia at rugby. I mean 'Weary' Dunlop did it in the '30s, when Victoria was strong, but it just doesn't happen these days.

Amanda Smith: All right, well what about geography, landscape, the difference between the two cities in terms of the geography of the two, Rob?

Robert Pascoe: Yes, Ron Barassi told me that when he went to coach in Sydney that he understood this question immediately because he looked around and there was all hills and there was no space to play Australian Football. And it's kind of true, there was certainly early on in Melbourne the notion that because it lacked a good river and a good waterfront that the parks were what really made the city. And so like Boston in the same period, the town planners set about building an emerald necklace of parks around the city. And the shop workers and the factory workers on their Saturday afternoons off, would drift through those parks and there they'd see through the trees, these wonderfully multicoloured players besporting this strange code. And the crowds would gather, and as Tom says, there'd be crowds of up to 10,000 people just gathering around these parks watching this wonderful game.

So the parks were really part of it, and they provided a space where a huge game could take place. And those parks aren't really there in Sydney. So that's one part of the answer I think. But it also refers to the importance of aquatic sport in Sydney - Sydney had fantastic beaches and harbours and coves, and you could see it developing as an aquatic culture from very early days.

Amanda Smith: And I think you also mentioned that because Melbourne is a flatter place it's easier perhaps to walk around, and also a different kind of public transport system?

Robert Pascoe: Yes. So Melbourne developed very early on cable trams, which explains that growth of a suburban culture. It provided the infrastructure where people could actually live a fair way from the city and commute in. And so quite early on, you had quite large suburbs developing. So I guess the Melbourne tram system even today takes in most of the football grounds, and you can actually go around the football grounds.

Amanda Smith: Tom, can things like geography, landscape, public transport, actually contribute in some way to explaining a difference between two places and two football codes?

Thomas Hickie: Certainly. Actually just as Rob was speaking, I was remembering Lionel Frost wrote a book in about 1990 - I think he's from Monash Uni., 'Australian Cities in Comparative View'. And he made this point about Sydney, Brisbane, that they were walking cities, whereas Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth were not, they were the first cities where you had this early suburbanisation with railways happening. Things were happening in these flatter cities. And it's also not only in football, but in cricket. You had the great Melbourne Cricket Club; Sydney didn't have a great cricket club, because it couldn't get a ground. It couldn't get exclusive use of a ground, people wouldn't go out to Moore Park, really people considered it was too far to go even till the 1870s. One of the arguments I've made in my book is rugby only started taking off when the Wallaroos got use of Moore Park and people could start to move out there, and the trains started happening, that football started to take off in Sydney. Prior to that, people had to play on the Domain and they had to share it with cattle grazing - I mean until the 1860s. There was virtually the equivalent of a Royal Commission into what was going on into Sydney's parks at that stage.

So this is an essential issue, and people out there listening might think, well they're drawing a long bow, but really people haven't looked enough. We're looking from the 1990s, and rather than looking at these cities from today, it is important to look from the 1850s and '60s and '70s at what was going on in these cities. And they were two very different places. And I guess what happened in Brisbane: Brisbane is an interesting point, because Australian football did take off there; they were confused whether they were going to play Australian football, or rugby.

Amanda Smith: What period are you talking about here?

Thomas Hickie: We're talking in the 1880s: the first game 1882, 1883. And there was an issue whether they were going to play rugby or Australian football, and it was only because this elite in Sydney who pushed the rugby line that they ended up playing rugby. And that was very important.

Amanda Smith: Well let's talk about the particular differences between the two games, the way they're organised and the way they're played. For instance Rob, I think you argue that Australian Rules doesn't have an offside rule, and that is a particular cultural thing?

Robert Pascoe: Yes it makes it very unusual. Most codes of football around the world have some notion of offside. My argument is, I suppose, that same sort of cultural and anthropological argument I was running a minute ago. Which is that why you wouldn't have an offside rule is because you would want to make it easier for the attackers to get the goal. In other words you're actually seeing the game as an offensive game rather than a defensive game. And I guess in an Australian context - Melbourne was one of the first cities in the world where land was bought and sold all the time, there wasn't a kind of land holding class like there was in Sydney, who thought they had rights to land. So if you think about the game as a kind of a conquest of territory, a conquest of land, then the odd thing about Australian Rules football is that the goal at the very end can be captured quite easily. So there's a notion there that individual effort - or, if you like, the Protestant idea of mid last century of the effort of self-improvement, or the work ethic, - has its own reward. Whereas in lots of forms of football, particularly of course European football - soccer as we call it here - goals are very rare and hard to come by, because in those societies people aren't used to there being a kind of a turnover, if you will, of goals or property. So property is something which is kind of almost inalienably part of what the nobility expect to hold onto from one generation to the next.

Amanda Smith: Tom, do you want to comment here?

Thomas Hickie: I must admit I was just looking back through my book there, at some drawings from C.H. Chambers, who did some drawings at Rugby School in the 1840s. And this point of property is correct, and in fact what they used to be protecting was called the island, it was the sort of safe part of the field, it was protecting the island goal. And it's an interesting argument which I'm sure some MA student or Ph.D student could do more work on.

Amanda Smith: Well let's just finally look at that issue of an international game that rugby certainly is, and rugby league to some extent at least is, compared to Australian football which is an exclusively Australian game. Rob what difference does that sum up for you between again the two cities of origin?

Robert Pascoe: It's the case that Melbourne is a much more socially conservative city, although it's politically very advanced and liberal for reasons that we've talked about. But it's socially and culturally very conservative and inward-looking. And the game of Australian football developed here in this kind of hothouse of suburban rivalries for that very reason. Sydney has always been a much more outward looking place. It looks across the Pacific, it looks to Asia, it looks back to Europe, and embraced a game which was international in every sense.

Amanda Smith: Running with the ball, be it Australian football, rugby union or rugby league. Robert Pascoe and Thomas Hickie there with the games that have traditionally divided us.

And that brings us to the end of another edition of The Sports Factor.

---

The Sports Factor can be heard on Radio National, 8.30am Fridays (Repeated Friday evenings at 8.00pm).