by Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

Sydney clubs often travelled to NSW country areas in the early decades of rugby league. On weekends where no club matches were scheduled or they had the bye, teams would catch a Friday night or Saturday morning train north, south or west to help spread the word about the 'League Football' game.

After usually arriving early Saturday, the team would play one or two games against local sides before returning straight home - missing work on Monday wasn't an option. The proceeds from the matches would help to grow or establish local clubs and competitions.

It was not until 1990 that the NSWRL began to schedule regular season matches in areas outside the bounds of the current clubs. The first match saw Easts and Canterbury make the trek to Townsville where they slugged out a 12-12 draw.

However the first competition match taken to a country area was back in 1914 when Western Suburbs and Annandale played in Goulburn. Two matches were played in 1909 in Newcastle, but they were a premiership club at the time.

An earlier game between Sydney clubs had been played outside the metropolitan area - Souths v Norths at Bathurst in April 1913 - and there may have been others. However these games were not official premiership matches - except the 1914 visit to Goulburn.

Aside from the Goulburn match being an obvious attempt to show 1st grade rugby league to the locals, little is known of how the match came about. There was no local competition at the time, so the only ready solution was to bring two teams in.

Goulburn was the state's largest inland city and readily accessible via train from Sydney. While the city was an obvious target for the growing game, Wests and Annandale were hardly the prime exponents of Sydney rugby league in 1914.

The match was the third last round of the season and it held no significance on the fight for the premiership. At that point Annandale had yet to win a game, while Wests hadn't seen a victory in almost two months.

With the growing news that war in Europe was escalating, the teams boarded the Friday night train from Sydney on August 7, 1914, arriving in Goulburn the next morning. The match was set down to kick-off at 3.15 p.m at the Goulburn Showground. More often than not, an early August afternoon would have been quite cold and windy.

The local press made note of the players arriving: "The city this morning was practically invaded by footballers.....two league teams, Annandale and Western Suburbs, were in town. The visitors attracted attention by driving through the city in motor cars, and stimulated no doubt by the news of the German request for an armistice purchased small flags and sang the National Anthem."

"There are included in the teams both interstate and international players. The public can look forward to some first-class football, as the teams are well matched and the contest is a competition one." [Goulburn Evening Penny Post]

For all the flag waving the Germans weren't serious about an armistice, and it seems the players weren't serious about their football. As the Post's reporter would later put it: "If the mission has failed there is no one to blame but the visiting exponents."

On paper, the match did offer some appeal with Tedda Courtney, William Joass, Clarrie Tye, H. Naylor and W. Easterbrook in the Wests team, and Rex Norman, W. Lindsay, J. Brassell, Jim Pye and W. Doyle playing for Annandale.

Wests won the match by 6-4 after scoring two unconverted tries. The closeness of the scores apparently wasn't enough to enliven the crowd "scarcely was there a cheer raised during the progress of the match."

The match reporter for the Post did concede that the players could have been weary from the overnight train journey but "as they came as missionaries, those who visited the game had a right to expect the best."

"As an exhibition match calculated to gain recruits to the ranks of Rugby League the display of Saturday afternoon on the showground was not a success...the match was to supply that something more, but it failed to materialise."

At the back-end of the game, the reporter was hopeful: "Annandale can be relied upon in the last quarter to make things hum, but there was no buzzing on Saturday." The 'Dales Rex Norman made some late valiant runs to clinch the winning try, but "his forwards either failed to take a pass that meant victory or got in each other's way."

The final summation from the Goulburn Evening Penny Post: "The game was a disappointing display, however, from a league point of view, and if Saturday's is anything like a fair sample of the two teams' capabilities - which, however, we cannot believe - something better in class should be tried next time. It will only be something a bit extra that will attract Union footballers Leaguewards."

If the NSWRL did have plans to return, they would have been ended by the priorities of the Great War.

The match though took £17 at the gate (6d. general entry, with 6d. extra to sit in the Grandstand or Smokers' Stand) with £5 donated to help establish the local League competition.

The visit to the country air must have done the Annandale players some good - the next week they won their only game of the season when they nudged out Eastern Suburbs 16-14 at Wentworth Park. At nearby Birchgrove Oval, Wests copped a 30 point flogging from Balmain.

Thanks to the Southern Tablelands Regional Library, Goulburn

History Article © Sean Fagan / RL1908