In the pioneering years of Wallaroo, nothing drew a crowd like the matches played twenty-a-side—centred around a mobile mass of twenty-eight forwards in a heaving struggle of bone and muscle. It was ‘the more the merrier’: a spectacle of riotous football that awed the Sydney public. Now long extinct, the great Wallaroo ‘First Twenty’ made their final stands on the fields of Moore Park in the dying days of the 1874 winter.

The “Bigside”: An Article of Faith with Rugby Twenties
In the early days of rugby football in the mid 1800s, the laws of the game were silent on team sizes. Tradition though had meant the use of twenty-a-side teams was thought the “beau ideal” across rugby in Britain and even the local piebald football games emerging in each of the cities of the Australian colonies over the 1850s and ’60s.*

The tradition of twenty-a-side teams was rooted in the legendary ‘Bigside’ matches of Rugby School, whether handed down by old boys, or as read from the pages of Thomas Hughes’ famous 1857 novel Tom Brown’s Schooldays. These were games of staggering scale. Another well-known Rugby School story told in schools and rugby clubs was that in 1839, 75 boys of the School House famously took on “The Rest”—a mass of 225 opponents.

Montague Shearman, a titan of 1870s Oxford University rugby, recalled that these “Bigside” traditions were treated as an article of faith with rugby footballers. Even as the game began to modernise, players still believed twenty was the minimum for a “model side.” To these traditionalists, the “scrimmage” (scrum) was the very essence of the game.

The 1875 edition of the ‘Football Annual’ in England still recommended playing 20-a-side whenever enough players were available. The system was also honoured and sustained by the international stage, where the inaugural era of matches between England, Scotland, and Ireland were all twenty-a-side encounters.

It wasn’t until the December 1875 Oxford vs. Cambridge match—played with fifteen a side—showcased a faster, more open style of play that the catalyst for permanent change was found. Britain officially moved to fifteen-a-side for the 1876/77 season, though the laws didn’t formally mandate the number as fifteen until 1892 amidst the looming threat of professionalism (rugby league).

The Wallaroo Tricolours
As the Wallaroo club and its membership and support grew, so did the desire to participate in these massive, classical contests of rugby comradeship with twenty-a-side teams. Ten such epic matches were played by the Wallaroo ‘1st Twenty’ between 1871 and ’74.

In 1871 the Wallaroo men wore a sombre sight in grey jerseys and white knickerbockers, their heads topped with a distinctive blue cap. But for 1872, as the club came into its own, they adopted the new style multi-colour hoop jerseys imported from England in vibrant striped hoops in Union Jack red, white, and blue. This tricolour is unique to the club’s twenty-a-side era.

On the touchlines of Moore Park and the Parramatta Domain, the sight of these “striped giants,” with a mastodon-sized forward pack colliding and moving with their opponents, offered a sharp, visual drama that captivated onlookers and served to give colour and life to the scene.

Unlike the first Wallaroo game of 1870 against ‘Army and Navy’—which followed the Rugby School tradition of playing over consecutive Saturdays until a goal was scored—these matches were settled or drawn on the one afternoon in two hours of play from 3 p.m kick-off to 5 p.m or dusk.

Between 1871 and 1874, the “First Twenty” (WFC) was a regular fixture of the Sydney winter:

• 1871 July 22: WFC & Sydney University (SUFC) drawn (no goals) at Moore Park.
• 1872 Jun 22: WFC def SUFC by 1 goal to nil at Moore Park.
• 1872 Aug 03: WFC & SUFC drawn (no goals) at Moore Park.
• 1872 Aug 17: WFC def SUFC by 1 goal to nil at Moore Park.
• 1873 Jun 21: WFC & King’s School Past & Present (TKS) drawn (no goals) at Parramatta.
• 1873 Aug 16: TKS def WFC by 1 goal to nil at Parramatta.
• 1874 May 31: WFC & TKS drawn (no goals) at Parramatta.
• 1874 Jun 20: WFC def TKS by 1 goal to nil at Parramatta.
• 1874 July 11: WFC & Waratah FC drawn (no goals) at the Military & Civil Ground (SCG).
• 1874 July 25: WFC & SUFC drawn (no goals) at Moore Park.
  **

Bulldogs and Greyhounds: The Art of the Shoving Game
One could readily deduce from these 1871 to ’74 match results what Wallaroo twenty-a-side rugby actually was. With the ball entombed within a massed pack of twenty-eight forwards — fourteen from each side — games were often desperate stalemates determined by a single goal kick, decided by endurance and brute strength rather than skill.

The Wallaroo men formed a full brigade, quite a formidable sight as they massed and then took to the field. More than two-thirds of the side were forwards, selected for their size, weight, and “bulldogism” — that stubborn, unyielding spirit of the era. Indeed a football animus.

“…the superior weight and compact play of the Wallaroos kept the ball continually at their opponents’ goal…”
— The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 August 1872 (Wallaroo v Sydney University on 3 August 1872)

These were heavy, powerful men built as living bulwarks for a monotonous, heaving struggle where the ball was rarely seen and even less often kicked. It was mountain against mountain: a primeval test of bone, muscle, and willpower that defined Wallaroo’s reputation in those pioneering years.

At the heart of every match lay the enormous scrum. The two packs locked together in a chaotic, sweating mass, faces up, shoulders and legs driving, boots pushing at the turf. The ball could disappear for minutes while the Wallaroo forwards pushed, wheeled, and strained to break the opposition. Spectators loved the raw power — the grunts, shouts, and sudden surges when the Wallaroo pack gained the upper hand and the ball finally squirted free. Looking downwards for the ball and hooking it backwards was a sin.

“The ball has just fallen again where the two sides are thickest, and they close rapidly around it in a scrummage. It must be driven through now by force or skill, till it flies out on one side or the other. Look how differently the boys face it! Here come two of the bulldogs, bursting through the outsiders; in they go, straight to the heart of the scrummage, bent on driving that ball out on the opposite side. That is what they mean to do.”
— Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes

While the forwards were the team’s bulldogs, the backs were its greyhounds. Wallaroo captains usually deployed three half-backs: one at the base of the scrum, the others patrolling the flanks. Deeper still were three stronger backs — the last line of defence, valued for tackling, fielding, and kicking.

Picking up the ball and running required real courage. Get caught and both packs would descend in a crushing pile upon you. Many still objected to “seeing the ball run with,” favouring the honest grind of the forwards. Yet for the brave Wallaroo half-backs and backs, the thrill was in “adventuring your life” with a solo dash.

For the backs the game remained direct and individual. Passing away the ball when encountering an opponent was unmanly and so rarely done. Ending a long run with a try or a flying drop-goal could turn a dour afternoon into legend.

“Play was commenced at 3 o’clock by a kick off from the middle of the ground by the Wallaroos, and for the first half hour the ball was kept in the middle of the ground. However, the superior weight and, we are bound to say, the excellent forward play of the Wallaroo began to tell, and while the ball was in dangerous proximity to the University’s goal line, Hargrave [WFC] very smartly ran in and touched it down [a try] behind the line on the east side; however, the chance [conversion] was missed by a bad kick from R. Arnold.”
— The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 June 1872 (Wallaroo v Sydney University on 22 June 1872)

“The result of the contest was extremely doubtful for some time, but about 5 o’clock the Wallaroo team (who had three trials) [3 tries] succeeded in obtaining a goal [conversion], kicked by Mr R. Arnold. There were a large number of spectators present, who appeared to take the liveliest interest in the competition, especially when it came to close quarters.”
— The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 June 1872 (Wallaroo v Sydney University on 22 June 1872)

This was rugby at its most elemental — raw, physical, and uncompromising. The Wallaroo 1st Twenty embodied that rugged spirit. Their era of the great shoving matches would soon yield to the faster and open fifteen-a-side game, yet the memory of those massed mastodon packs struggling against each other for minutes and longer endures as a testament to the rugged, riotous dawn of Sydney rugby.

Colonial Pragmatism: The Path to the First Fifteen
Unlike in Britain, the move to fifteen-a-side was driven less by a desire for “open play” and more to do with the strength of the Wallaroos.

“In those early days they played 20 men aside … The Wallaroos, however, had been playing 15 men aside. They were so strong a club that they could meet their opponents with five men less — and beat them.”
— The Newcastle Sun, 13 April 1921

Although the quote above tends towards the apocryphal, it was common practice for Wallaroo, in a well-established custom, “to even the odds” by agreeing to let the opposition have more players, or for Wallaroo to reduce its numbers, especially against school teams (when without their ‘past players’) or country clubs.

Still, the most likely factor in reducing teams from twenty men was colonial pragmatism. The city simply lacked the depth of players to consistently field forty men for a single match. The first rugby game that Wallaroo ever played in 1870 against ‘Army and Navy’ was arranged and held as sixteen a side. Though played under different rules, the city’s first inter-club match between the Sydney and Australian FCs in July 1865 was a mere fourteen a side.

There was also the problem that come game time teams could be smaller in number without any warning at all. The bigger the team the greater the chance of players unable to turn up, missing transport options and obviously very limited means of communication.

The earliest confirmed rugby match of fifteen against fifteen in Sydney was between Wallaroo and a team from ‘No. 10 Battery of Volunteer Artillery’ played at Moore Park on 8 July 1871. Tom Brown for Wallaroo kicked a drop goal near full time to give his side victory.

The transition from twenties rugby to fifteens was evident in the Wallaroo FC annual meeting in April 1875, where it was recorded that there were ten first-class matches in 1874: four by the “1st Twenty” and six by the “1st Fifteen.”

The 1875 season, the first under the ‘Southern Rugby Football Union’ (now the NSWRU), Sydney’s first-grade clubs had settled on fifteen players by convention.

The era of the Wallaroo FC “1st Twenty” rugby and their 14-man mastodon forward pack battles was over.

* Eighteen a side used today in AFL is a direct child of this rugby era. Melbourne rules football teams (VFA & VFL) retained twenty players a side until the end of the 19th century.
** This list, as far as it is known, does not include matches arranged to be 20-a-side that due to player absences or other reasons proceeded with one or both teams having less than twenty players. Also does not list any of the club’s in-house ‘scratch twenty’ matches.

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