Rugby Union has a long history in Australia, with the first club being formed in 1864 at Sydney University. Today it holds tier one status with the IRB and has over 82,000 players nationwide.
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The first reports of a sport like rugby being played in Australia date back to the 1820s when visiting ship crews would play army teams at Barrack Square.[1] However, it was in 1864, that the first formal club was formed at Sydney University.[1] From this beginning, the first metropolitan competition in Australia developed, formally beginning in 1874.[1] This was organised by the Southern Rugby Union, which was administered by the rugby union at Twickenham, in England. Administration was given over to the Southern Rugby Union in 1881.
Rugby began outside of Sydney first in Queensland in 1876, with the first inter-colonial match being played in Sydney in 1882. During these years the rugby that was played, was administered by the Queensland Football Association, which was the organisation administering principally the Melbourne Rules football code. Primarily due to the poor treatment rugby received by the QFA, a new organisation to oversee rugby was founded at a meeting held on 2 November 1883 at the Exchange Hotel in Brisbane. This organisation was formally constituted a decade later in 1893, as the Queensland Rugby Union.
The first international tour took place in 1899, when the two unions of New South Wales and Queensland played a four match series against a visiting team from the British Isles. Australia won its first match, but lost all remaining matches. The second match was played in Brisbane. Australia played its first match with New Zealand in 1903, and its second in 1907.
The first international tour was organised for 1908, when a squad of players travelled nine months United Kingdom, Ireland and North America. Invited to play in the rugby tournament that was a part of the 1908 London games, Australia won the gold medal, defeating the English team.
In 1907, the schism that more than a decade earlier, had torn the Northern Rugby Football Union from the Rugby Football Union, arrived on Australia's doorstep. Rugby union's amateur high ideals, irked the working class rugby players who sought compensation for time away from work. A meeting took place at Bateman's Crystal Hotel in Sydney on 8 August 1907, where a resolution was made to form the New South Wales Rugby Football League. They played their first season in 1908.
Such was the impact of the arrival of rugby league, that in 1908, when the touring Wallabies team returned from England, eleven of the players joined rugby league teams.[1] By 1910 rugby league had overtaken rugby union in popularity.
Heavy enlistments took their toll on the playing population of Rugby Union in Australia during World War I. The Queensland Rugby Union dissolved, and was only able to reorganise again in 1928. Such was the drop in playing numbers that the only players available during the 1920s for representing Australia were the Waratah players.[1]
In 1931, Lord Bledisloe the Governor General of New Zealand, donated a rugby trophy to honor the sporting rivalry between New Zealand and Australia.
Before 1947, all administration of Australian international rugby events was performed by the New South Wales Rugby Union. State unions in 1947 determined that Australia should be served by a national union in these matters. The International Rugby Board in 1948 extended the invitation to Australia and not the New South Wales Rugby Union, to take a seat on its board. This precipitated into the formation of Australian Rugby Football Union (ARFU). Eleven delegates from the unions in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and Victoria met on 25 November 1949 for ARFU's inaugural meeting.
The idea of a world cup tournament for rugby had arisen several times. Possibly as early as the 1950s murmurings of a world cup tournament were made by Harold Tolhurst. In 1979 Australian Rugby Union's president Bill McLaughin was requesting that Australia host a Rugby World Cup in conjunction with its Bicentennial celebrations in 1988.[2] The IRB had turned down all of these requests, forbidding any member unions from planning or attending any such events. Two separate objections have been noted,[2] the first that the IRB felt that the underlying amateur principle of rugby would be effected, the second that they did not want a rugby tournament being run by commercial interests.
These objections were laid aside in 1984, after receiving separate requests from New Zealand and Australia, to host a world cup, the IRB decided to approve a feasibility study of a Rugby World Cup.[2] Joining forces, New Zealand and Australia began their study on 1 December 1984. Presenting their findings to the IRB at the Paris meeting in March 1985, the approval for a joint Rugby World Cup was hard won. With an IRB split evenly, it took a detractor John Kendall-Carpenter to change his vote to the affirmative, to allow the World Cup to take place.[2]
The Rugby World Cup was held between 22 May to 20 June 1987.