Support for "packing the scrum" instead of "punching the ball" only won out after the arrival of Dally Messenger and rugby league.
A visit to Sydney by Carlton in 1877 sparked the city's first flirtation with Australian rules.
Impressed by the more open game and spectator appeal, the Sydney University and Waratahs clubs led a call for the NSWRU to abolish the scrum and adopt Australian rules.
Despite overwhelming support amongst Sydneysiders, the gentlemen leaders of NSW rugby couldn't bring themselves to vote in its favour - primarily as it meant having to sever their ties with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) in England.
Disheartened, the Waratahs switched codes and led a fledgling Australian rules club competition. In 1881 NSW played its first ever 'football' match when it took on Victoria under Australian rules - a crowd of 5,000 watching on at the SCG.
In an era where Australian rules and rugby were still not so dissimilar, many footballers interchanged between clubs and codes depending upon their whim. In 1888 a touring British rugby team played 18 Australian rules matches in Victoria and South Australia. Hugely popular, the British played Carlton at the MCG in front of 25,000. Their opponents also included South Melbourne, Fitzroy, Essendon, Port Melbourne and Port Adelaide.
A growing enthusiasm to reignite 'the Australian game' in Sydney appeared just after Federation. Led by Test cricketer Victor Trumper, and NSW politician (and former Tasmanian) Edward O'Sullivan, the 1903 winter saw an 11-club Australian rules competition in Sydney.
"Australia is a big paddock," offered O'Sullivan, "and there is room enough for all of us to play in it, whatever game we may prefer." He also argued that NSW should "support a game that was invented by Australians for Australia".
The Victorian Football League (VFL) assisted by sending Fitzroy and Collingwood north to play at the SCG during the 1903 winter. Over 26,000 attended, and the VFL allocated all the gate-money towards funding the code's growth in Sydney. The crowd was only 4,000 less than the record set in August 1903 for Australia's first ever rugby Test against New Zealand.
Australian rules quickly gained support at all levels. The 1903 club final attracted 4,000 - the same number as rugby league's first final between Souths and Easts in 1908. In the schools and junior competitions, rugby's domination was cut in half by 1905.
It was a worrying trend for NSWRU officials. Many openly admitted rugby was on the wane and they were facing a real challenge to hold the support of the city.
Being tied to the amateur-based RFU, meant the NSWRU could not introduce rule changes to counter Australian rules, nor meet the growing calls to provide better financial support for its largely working-class footballers when they were injured or away on tours. Opponents openly began calling the NSWRU 'un-Australian'.
While the VFL in Melbourne was not yet a professional sport, it was well-recognised that monetary-support to footballers was 'quietly' being provided. Given a professional football code would eventually come to Sydney, it was clear it could not be rugby union.
Just as it seemed Australian rules was ready to pounce, the astonishing financial success of the New Zealand All Blacks 1905/06 tour of Britain changed the tact of Trumper, O'Sullivan and others - they turned to rugby league.
With professional rugby in England stronger than rugby union, the opportunity offered by taking-up rugby league in Sydney and undertaking overseas tours, was of far greater appeal than fostering the growth of Australian rules.
1906 also saw the emergence of Dally Messenger in rugby union. His popularity drove a resurgence in interest in the English code. Ironically, the prodigious kicking and finely tuned handling skills of Messenger are thought to have been acquired from his time playing Australian rules in Melbourne. Messenger lived with his aunt in South Melbourne as a teenager, but was lost to the code when he wanted to return to Sydney.
Australian rules battled-on, and in 1907 the NSW team played against South Melbourne and Port Adelaide at the Agricultural Ground. The games though were overshadowed by news of the formation of professional rugby league (NSWRL).
Rugby union authorities refused to give the NSWRL access to the SCG or Sports Ground, and Australian rules officials graciously vacated the Agricultural Ground for two weekends, allowing rugby league to kick-off. It was a fatal mistake for Australian rules.
The NSWRL made enough money from the matches to fund the formation of a club competition, and Australian rules lost its lease on the ground. Rugby league soon gained the mass support of Sydney's working-class, and Australian rules faltered - though not as much as rugby union which went into serious decline.
In 1911 The Referee pronounced that interest in Australian rules had surpassed that of rugby union - achieving the long-held dream of supporters of the Victorian code.
By then though, a NSW 'Blues' rugby league match at the SCG attracted over 46,000 fans, and Australian rules' opportunity was gone.
