Petone Rugby played big part in 'All Golds'

The Petone Rugby Club played a huge part in the soon to be celebrated ‘All Golds Tour’ 100 years ago. This story tells how it all came about.

Rugby League celebrates its Centennial Year surviving two World Wars plus the wrath and life bans from the New Zealand Rugby Union for nearly 90 years.

It remains, after 100 years, one of the most, if not the most audacious and spectacularly successful pioneering sporting adventures of any New Zealand sports team - the 1907-08 Professional All Blacks Pictured above. who toured Australia, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Wales, England and Australia again.

They embraced a game most of them had never seen, let alone play. They set out not familiar with the rules. At the end of their 49-match, 10-months tour they had test series wins over both Great Britain and Australia and earned the right to regard themselves as the first world champions in the fledging code to become known as rugby league.

They turned a 50 pounds deposit each member was required to make, in those days a half years wage, into 350 pounds each from the tour's profit.

If the venture had failed, all those involved faced the certainty of having their sporting careers ended in disgrace and vilification.

All 28, including the contingent of eight amateur All Blacks, four of them famed 1905-06 'Originals', were banned for life by a vengeful and in damage control New Zealand Rugby Union, from ever participating again in rugby union at all levels, and all went to their grave with that stigma still attached.

These Professional All Blacks were too successful, because within two years 11 of them were in England playing for professional clubs.

Thursday, August 9, 2007 is a very significant day for rugby league, not only in this country, but also in Australia and England. On this very day 100 years ago the s.s. Warrimoo steamed out of Wellington for Sydney then Ceylon, en route to England and Wales, with the first 15 members of the Professional All Blacks who had agreed to play a season's football against the clubs comprised in the Northern Rugby Football Union. Four days later another 10 players left Auckland by the s.s.Victoria for Sydney where incumbent All Black 'Massa' Johnston (Otago), Daniel Fraser (Wellington) and the best rugby union player in Australia 'Dally' Messenger joined the 28-strong touring party.

The powerful New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) had done all it could to prevent these rugby union rebels forming their professional troupe, even to the point of involving the New Zealand Government's office in London. But this was not surprising as the agent-general, Cecil Wray Palliser, was also the NZRU delegate to the (English) Rugby Football Union. Palliser used his contacts at the 'The Times' newspaper to issue statements labelling the tourists a 'phantom team', claiming that organizer Albert Henry Baskerville was 'hoodwinking the people' and saying that the players 'would bring no credit to New Zealand'. Palliser's outburst was intended to be read by Northern Union officials and convince them to withdraw their support for the Professionals tour.

Despite the NZRU's strenuous efforts, the centennial rugby league 440-page book, The KIWIS 100 Years of International Rugby League, released earlier in April this year, reports that 18 members of the 'Originals' applied to Baskerville, to go back to England and 140, of the then 400 first class union players in New Zealand, expressed an interest in a game none of them had ever seen.

Newspaper Editorials were scathing and in total support of an amateur game. Wellington's Evening Post referred to 'the pro Blacks - a contingent of the New Zealand professional footballers - are to sail for Australia, where they are to engage in combat with other leopards who have changed their spots'.

AE Devory, president of the Auckland Rugby Union, in the New Zealand Times on 13 August expressed 'regret at the appearance of professionalism in football in this colony. Its evil effects, he said, were so well known that he thought it had small chance of obtaining a place among players generally, or with those having control of the game in New Zealand'.

Yet it was the tour of the Originals that hastened the introduction of league into both New Zealand and Australia. True they had established New Zealand as a rugby union force with their imperious march through Britain, causing much pride and excitement in their homeland. In reality, England had not recovered from losing Yorkshire and Lancashire to Northern Union, the dominant counties at the time of the great schism of 10 years earlier. The All Blacks only encountered real opposition in Wales.

But there was great unrest in the game in the southern hemisphere. The Rugby Football Union (RFU) ruled with an iron hand on every matter including rules and amateurism. The Originals referred to themselves as the 'three bob a day men' in an ironic nod to the dismal per diem given them by the NZRU. Equally meagre allowances paid to touring New South Wales teams, and a lack of financial compensation for injuries, were causing outrage in largely working-class Sydney. The Originals had generated 13,000 pounds for the NZRU - yet many came back penniless, out of work and very disenchanted with their financial treatment. Why else would 18 of them apply to go back with Baskerville? That only four of them were selected was due to a number of reasons, not the least being some could not afford the 50 pounds deposit, lineout leapers were not required and forwards had to be more mobile than was often the case in rugby union.

Earning the title of 'father of the game' here in New Zealand and the 'founder of international league', it was 24-year-old Wellington postal worker and Oriental rugby club member, Albert Henry Baskerville, who conceived the idea of taking a rugby union team to England to play the new game. He was a remarkable young man whose vision and skill as an organizer made him the most controversial figure in New Zealand sport during the first decade of the twentieth century.

As a rugby player Baskerville had size and speed and was a prolific try scorer for Oriental. He was also a prolific writer supplying several English papers with sports articles and penned a highly successful book on New Zealand rugby tactics and techniques in 1904. During his summers he excelled on the athletics track, particularly over 880 yards and one mile.

In early January, 1907, Baskerville began secretly negotiating with Joe Platt the Secretary of the Northern Union (later the English Rugby League). By late March, Platt had promised Baskerville 70% of every gate and a guaranteed return of 3000 pounds from the trip as long as he was assured of a quality touring team and it included some members of the Original All Blacks. Their share of gate income in England and Wales eventually came in near 9000 pounds with attendances exceeding 300,000.

Baskerville must have been an exceptional entrepreneur having the expenses of the tour guaranteed before the selection of his team. He was identified by the NZRU, as the instigator of a possible professional tour and was the first person banned for life and soon banned from attending union games. However, he quickly found an ally in champion sportsman George Smith one of the All Blacks who had seen the Northern Union game played in 1905. Smith in fact had held talks with people of a like mind in Sydney and three games in that city against New South Wales were soon added to the itinerary.

Baskerville added two more Original All Blacks Duncan McGregor and Bill (Massa) Johnston, plus Wellington provincial and Petone club captain Hercules (Bumper) Wright to his selection panel. Wright had been captain of both for four years. In the greatest of secrecy All Blacks and top provincial players committed to the professional team and were never uncovered. Even the media never got to name the players until the Warrimoo sailed. It was a brilliant undercover operation.

In all eight All Blacks were in the team with provinces Wellington (10) and Auckland (9) providing the bulk of the team. The Petone Rugby club contributed its All Black’s Tom Cross, Duncan McGregor and four of its top players including team captain Hercules Wright..

Forwards: Hercules Wright (Petone, captain), Tom Cross (Petone), Edward Tyne (Petone), Dan Fraser (Petone), Adam Lisle (Wellington), Eric Watkins (Wellington), Arthur Callam (Wellington), Dan Gilchrist (Wellington), Con Byrne (Nelson), Charles Dunning (Auckland), Bill Mackrell (Auckland), Bill Trevarthen (Auckland), Bill Johnston (Otago), Charles Pearce (Canterbury).

Backs: Arthur Kelly (Petone), Duncan McGregor (Petone), Albert Baskerville (Wellington, secretary), Jim Gleeson (Hawkes Bay, treasurer), Joseph Lavery (Canterbury), Hubert Turtill (Canterbury), Bill Tyler (Auckland), Harold Rowe (Auckland), Dick Wynward (Auckland), Billy Wynyard (Auckland), George Smith (Auckland), Lance Todd (Auckland), Edgar Wrigley (Wairarapa), Dally Messenger (Sydney).

Smith, Johnston, McGregor and Mackrell were the rugby union Originals who returned to England and the other four All Blacks were Wrigley, Turtill, Cross and Watkins.

Most of the non-internationals had represented North or South Island, or had given sterling service to their province.

George Gillett, one of the stars of the Originals, withdrew at the eleventh hour and was replaced by Messenger.

Officially known as the Professional All Blacks, the team was dubbed 'All Golds' by an Australian journalist, in a derogatory sense at first, but the name stuck and now appears as an honourable entry in the annals of rugby league football.

Three professional games in eight days, the first on 17 August against New South Wales, on the way over were played under union rules and all won by the All Golds. Neither side knew the rules of Northern Union, although Baskerville had a rule book. The bonus for the tourists was that they were guaranteed a sum of at least 500 pounds, but their agreed share of the gates came to 700 pounds.

Next came a unique stop over game against Ceylon on 12 September, again under union rules and won by the All Golds 33-6.

Having devoted considerable time on the boat over to learning the rules of the new game, when they arrived in Leeds in early October the All Golds discovered that three significant rule changes had been adopted by the Northern Union for the new season.

* teams had been reduced from 15 to 13
* play the ball introduced to replace mauls and rucks
* kick out on the full was ball back to restart with a scrum

On the way home the All Golds stopped off in Australia, in April/May/June, for a 10 match schedule including three tests against Australia. This time, apart from one game against Newcastle, the games were played under Northern Union rules.

The tour that started in early August 1907 with the first game on 17 August ended with the 49th game against Australia on 6 June, but not without a major tragedy.

Baskerville caught pneumonia in Brisbane on the final leg of the tour and died in hospital on 20 May, at just 25 years of age.

Six of his teammates brought his body back to Wellington where he was buried. Before the All Golds dispersed a benefit match for his widowed mother was played at Athletic Park on 13 June, 1908, before a crowd of 8000 interested spectators among them a number of officials from the New Zealand and Wellington Rugby Unions.

Thus played was the very first game of rugby league in New Zealand

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