International Exposure for Aussie Rules (Not AFL)

[Les Malone]

Australian rules football, a halfway house between football and rugby played on a cricket pitch

The scene is a park bench in southwest London on a brisk Thursday morning. The ground is dewy; not lido levels, but shoes are being ruined. A low sun ensures eyes are working double time.A senior gentleman taps upon my shoulder. “What’s happening here?” he asks, gesturing towards 36 men running arou

www.thetimes.co.uk

World Footy News Retweeted




Elgan Evan Alderman

@WelshMinor

“It’s for those people who like to play that free-flowing sport but don’t like it when someone falls over and cries on the pitch." Wimbledon Park has been a home to Aussie rules of late. For this week's column, I delve into the world of footy.

 

[NoobPie]

The scene is a park bench in southwest London on a brisk Thursday morning. The ground is dewy; not lido levels, but shoes are being ruined. A low sun ensures eyes are working double time.

A senior gentleman taps upon my shoulder. “What’s happening here?” he asks, gesturing towards 36 men running around. “Are they trying something new? I walk here and I have never seen it.” I was inclined to believe him; he didn’t seem the sort to lie about where he walks. Little did this forenoon perambulator know that he was watching Croatia taking on Denmark in a code of football thousands of miles from its heartland, whose laws were written down four years before association football and 12 before rugby. Australian rules was on British soil.

The fourth triennial AFL (Australian Football League) Europe Championship began in Wimbledon Park on Wednesday. After two days of competition between Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain and Ireland on the men’s side, and the latter three on the women’s, the participants in Saturday’s respective grand finals have been decided: Denmark face Great Britain and Ireland take on Germany.
Some disparagingly refer to it as “Australian no rules” but the sport’s chaos and lack of refinement are part of the beauty. “This is the least developed code from the original mob football games,” Phil Martin, the GB team manager, says. He fell for the game after seeing Aussie rules on Channel 4’s Trans World Sport in the 1980s.
“I do like rugby but it’s stop-start, a dour game,” he says. “This is free-flowing, end to end. I’m a big fan of American football but you’re driving [up field]. This is like the best of both worlds.”

The tenets of football and rugby are all there in a mishmash of purity: 18 players on each side, on an oval pitch of no official length (Melbourne Cricket Ground is 171m long and 146m wide), kick an oval ball in the direction of four crossbar-free posts — six points for bisecting the large inner ones, one point if it sneaks within the smaller posts on either side; there is tackling, shoving, shoulder-charging and plenty of off-the-ball niggle, but no offside line.
Handpasses are allowed but must be executed by punching the ball with one hand. Players may run with the ball but must bounce it on the floor — officially every 15 metres but in reality, it is judged on a don’t-take-the-piss basis. A player who catches a kick on the full earns the right to attempt a kick from the mark without interference.

Great Britain celebrate during their match against Ireland at Wimbledon ParkDANNY RADIS PHOTOGRAPHY
Some aspects of the sport are unmistakably unique. An umpire — one of nine for a match — awards a goal by appearing to brandish two imaginary pistols behind the posts. Players do not wear jerseys, they wear sleeveless guernseys. Hailing from the Channel Island, this was a term for the clothing of sailors, then goldminers, before translating to Aussie rules.
In short, it is a halfway house between rugby and football. Played on a cricket pitch.
“What we usually say is it kind of mixes the physicality of rugby and American football, but then it’s as free-flowing as European football,” Simon Malone, whose father emigrated from Australia to Denmark, says. The Danish AFL was founded in 1989 after Mick Sitch, an Australian expat, advertised in a newspaper for a kickabout and three people turned up. This season there will be seven teams.
“It’s for those people who like to play that free-flowing sport but don’t like it when they get a yellow card in football for being a little bit rough or don’t like it when someone falls over and cries on the pitch,” Malone says. “It’s very easy to get the Danish hooked on it: it’s rough and fun. The social side of it is unmatched by other sports, at least in Denmark.”
The Danish side are coached by Atiba Jackson, a 28-year-old who emigrated from Melbourne to Aarhus three years ago. “It’s such a dynamic game, there’s something for everyone that wants to play,” he says. “If you’re a big guy, there’s a role where you can jump and try to catch the ball and push the ball forward. If you’re small, there’s also a chance for you to be at people’s feet, grab the ball on the ground, kick some goals. It looks a bit crazy out there but there’s something for everyone to be involved.”
Most sports have a pioneer, real or apocryphal. Born in New South Wales, Thomas Wills attended Rugby School in Warwickshire and was a pre-eminent cricketer, playing for Cambridge University, Kent and MCC.
As captain of Victoria in 1858, Wills wrote a letter calling for the formation of a “foot-ball club” to keep cricketers occupied during the winter; or rather, to “keep those who are inclined to become stout from having their joints encased in useless superabundant flesh”. The next year Australian rules football — “footy” — was codified. Soccer followed in 1863, rugger in 1871.
Victoria remains the epicentre of footy, with ten of the 18 AFL sides coming from the state. The MCG is Lord’s and St Andrews rolled into one: four of those AFL clubs have the G as their home ground.

In a country with four codes of football, Aussie rules tops rugby league, rugby union and soccer. This year’s AFL grand final at the G, which took place two weeks ago, had a crowd of 100,014. Waratahs had the highest average attendance this year of Australia’s Super Rugby franchises, with 13,069. The average attendance for the 2019 AFL season was 36,317.
Wimbledon Park was a far cry from Victoria, with Clapham Common the host of the London Men’s Premiership grand final. Nevertheless, this was serious fare for the competing nations. Dean Thomas, the GB men’s coach, missed a junket at the Australian high commission on Wednesday night to examine game footage of Ireland. It paid off, the Great Britain Bulldogs winning 48-30 yesterday to reach the final.
The women’s side, Great Britain Swans, fared less well against the team in green. Irish Banshees were different gravy, beating the Britons 70-0 on day one and 58-0 yesterday. The similarities between Aussie rules and Gaelic football — an amateur sport — are obvious and more than ten Irish women will play professionally in Australia’s AFLW next year.
All of the British players have funded their travel and accommodation for the tournament, with Raffi Jones coming from Melbourne and Ellie Moss from Vancouver. “There are other girls in Australia but it’s a huge ask for them to come over for a tournament,” Ian Mitchell, the Swans head coach and former men’s captain, says. The British players are drawn primarily from AFL England’s three leagues (London, Central and Northern England, and South England and Wales), AFL Scotland or the newly founded university league, comprising Birmingham, Cambridge, Oxford and South Wales.
To the uninitiated, it may seem as if coaches are redundant in this chaotic endeavour but there is a place for organisation. “We try to make very clear what the roles are — if you’re playing in defence, if you’re in midfield, these are the basic roles we need you to cover,” Mitchell says. “Just like any other sport, when there are set plays, opportunities to set your structure up, like organising for a corner in football or a scrum in rugby. When there’s a kick out, we’ll have a set way we want to go about things.”
“It’s about setting up structures, positions where you want your players to be at certain times,” Jackson says. “We do understand it’s very dynamic and lots of things we can’t control. When they have the ball, find your opponent and run to them. When you have the ball, spread, run away, open up the game. Give each player a role and get them to stick to that.
“Sometimes it is just 36 people chasing the ball around.”

 

[RedV3x]

This is the least developed code from the original mob football games

Strange, when so many people complain of all the "rule" changes.

The tenets of football and rugby are all there in a mishmash of purity

Strange when the laws of the codes have extremely little in common.

Players do not wear jerseys,

No, players wear jumpers.

In short, it is a halfway house between rugby and football.

In short, a unique game.

The next year Australian rules football — “footy” — was codified. Soccer followed in 1863, rugger in 1871.

Yes, Australian Football was created BEFORE any other football code was codified.
That has tremendous implications and should bury a lot of b.s.

The similarities between Aussie rules and Gaelic football — an amateur sport — are obvious

Yes, originally people said Australian Football came from Gaelic Football because of the similarities.
Then people realised that Gaelic Football was not codified and now believe Australian Football in part led to the codification of gaelic Football.
Obviously Australian Football had potential influences in uncodified English and Gaelic Football, Marngrook and the weather.
Four teachers and an Irishman formulated the first 10 rules of Australian Football which were almost identical to the 1863 first rules of Cambridge University. Cambridge dropped the "fair catch" rule in 1866. Also in 1866 Melbourne adopted the 12 Geelong rules of football.The 1871 rules of Rugby had nothing in common with the 1859 Melbourne rules or 1861 victorian rules. In 1887 Gaelic Football was first codified by a man with Australian Football experience and the laws were very similar to those of Australian Football.

 

[jatz14]

Strange, when so many people complain of all the "rule" changes.



Strange when the laws of the codes have extremely little in common.



No, players wear jumpers.



In short, a unique game.



Yes, Australian Football was created BEFORE any other football code was codified.
That has tremendous implications and should bury a lot of b.s.



Yes, originally people said Australian Football came from Gaelic Football because of the similarities.
Then people realised that Gaelic Football was not codified and now believe Australian Football in part led to the codification of gaelic Football.
Obviously Australian Football had potential influences in uncodified English and Gaelic Football, Marngrook and the weather.
Four teachers and an Irishman formulated the first 10 rules of Australian Football which were almost identical to the 1863 first rules of Cambridge University. Cambridge dropped the "fair catch" rule in 1866. Also in 1866 Melbourne adopted the 12 Geelong rules of football.The 1871 rules of Rugby had nothing in common with the 1859 Melbourne rules or 1861 victorian rules. In 1887 Gaelic Football was first codified by a man with Australian Football experience and the laws were very similar to those of Australian Football.

My understanding (no expert, could be wrong), is that the existence of Gaelic football prior to codification was extremely short. It is not an ancient game, that got codified in 1887. It was a new game, created by Irish Nationalists, as a counter to the imported games from England that were gaining popularity. They invented it, pretty much from scratch, then sold it as an ancient gaelic sport that all true Irish Nationalists should play in preference to English sports.

Australian football may have had an influence on the development of Gaelic, but the reverse cannot be true.

 

[RedV3x]

My understanding (no expert, could be wrong), is that the existence of Gaelic football prior to codification was extremely short. It is not an ancient game, that got codified in 1887.

Quite the opposite. The Gaels were very organised when it came to sports and played sports regularly unlike sporadic English football.
The Gaels invented golf, hockey, hurley and a number of lesser sports.

" Though references to Irish Football are practically non-existent before the 1600s the earliest records of a recognised precursor to modern Gaelic football Bardic sources provide an insight into the character of the pre-GAA games. Hurling predominates, but there are also references to football. Fragments of the ancient Brehon Laws show that hurling was regulated from at least the eighth century. After the Norman invasion of the 12th century, hurling was proscribed by the English Crown. The first record of Gaelic football is in the Statutes of Galway (1527) which allowed the playing of football but banned hurling."

https://www.rebelogcoaching.com/library/history-gaelic-football/

It is not an ancient game, that got codified in 1887. It was a new game, created by Irish Nationalists, as a counter to the imported games from England that were gaining popularity.

Yes, nationalisation pushed for codification but probably Gaelic football was so strong that nobody had been bothered to write rules.

Australian Football could have been heavily influenced by Gaelic Football. We simply don't know.
The problem is the overlap of rules. Kicking, catching and running was common to ALL football at the time.

 

[Gigantor]

Australian Football could have been heavily influenced by Gaelic Football. We simply don't know.
The problem is the overlap of rules. Kicking, catching and running was common to ALL football at the time.

We sort of do know.
There is zero evidence of any Irish influence.
The history of Australian Football is actually quite well documented, stacks of source documents and eye-witness reports have survived.
We know the role of certain members of the MCC.
How strongly under the influence of the Irish do you reckon the MCC would have been? (noting we are talking about 1858-59)
Probably helps explain why we have zero evidence of any Irish influence.
And yet some wish us to believe that a game first codified in 1883 is somehow the precursor to a game codified 24 years earlier?
The similarities are easily explained when you know the full history of all the English games of the era.
Also worth noting that the English FA rules of 1863 were very similar to the Melbourne rules of 1859.

 

[RedV3x]

The history of Australian Football is actually quite well documented

Yes we know that there were plenty of Irishmen in Victoria at that time.
We know that there was a hurling competition.
We know that one of the men involved in writing of the initial rules was an Irishman.
No football was codified at the time yet this has been only used to dismiss the Irish link.
Melbourne codified it's football first and the rules were so simple no person can gauge exactly how it was played.
Melbourne adopted Geelong's rules soon after which defined the handpass and thus we have an insight into the game.

The simple and irrefutable fact is that people were free to play Gaelic football or English football,
but the overwhelming majority didn't, they created and played an entirely new game,
an entirely new game not based on any previous game but most probably influenced by other football.

Since the main developments of all other football codes happened after the codification of Australian Football
it is illogical to say they were important in the development of Australian football.

 

[Les Malone]

Yes we know that there were plenty of Irishmen in Victoria at that time.
We know that there was a hurling competition.
We know that one of the men involved in writing of the initial rules was an Irishman.
No football was codified at the time yet this has been only used to dismiss the Irish link.
Melbourne codified it's football first and the rules were so simple no person can gauge exactly how it was played.
Melbourne adopted Geelong's rules soon after which defined the handpass and thus we have an insight into the game.

The simple and irrefutable fact is that people were free to play Gaelic football or English football,
but the overwhelming majority didn't, they created and played an entirely new game,
an entirely new game not based on any previous game but most probably influenced by other football.

Since the main developments of all other football codes happened after the codification of Australian Football
it is illogical to say they were important in the development of Australian football.

Who knows how Gaelic football was played in the past, what we do know is how Gaelic football was played after codification. ( roughly)

This may interest you.

Gaelic football vs Aussie Rules: Is there a connection?

Gaelic or Irish football has historical references to around the 14th century, so this article in no way claims that Australians invented the game…

www.theroar.com.au

 

[Les Malone]

Replying to the above post.

Gaelic football vs Aussie Rules: Is there a connection?

Gaelic or Irish football has historical references to around the 14th century, so this article in no way claims that Australians invented the game…

www.theroar.com.au

AligeeAuthor
Roar Rookie
February 25th 2019 @ 6:53am

I happened to stumble across this a while ago, these are some quotes from a thesis written by Joe Lennon in around 1999, Lennon was a famous Gaelic footballer, coach and master tactician, he passed away in 2016.

He analyses the updated Gaelic football rules of 1895 …. Definitions of the various forms of the kick began to appear The punt and drop
kick were defined in precisely the same words as those used twenty one years earlier in the 1874 edition of The Victorian Rules of Football

In analysing the updated Gaelic rules in 1888, he had this to say …. It is quite clear that the idea of points posts was copied from the Australian game as was the rule regarding nails and iron tips on boots which is virtually the same wording as that which appeared in the first rules of the Victorian Football Association of 1877 eleven years earlier, Other similarities are to be found in both the statements of the rules, the fouls and specific permissions. Overall, it is true to say that the 1888 edition of the rules of hurling and football borrowed extensively from the rules already in use in Australian Football, and echoed some of the existing legislation of shinty

In analyzing the 1886 Gaelic football rules he stated ……. These points posts were copied from the Australian Rules game.
That statement by Lennon is one of only a couple bolded in the entire thesis.

I have dumbed it down or condensed it, a good place to start is this link ……. which show the rules for Victorian Rules 1866, Victorian Rules of Football 1874 , First Rules of Victorian Football Association, 1877, South Australian Rules, 1877 , Laws of Australasian Game f Football 1883, Laws of Australian Game of Football 1895.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/16510716.pdf

These are compared against the first rules of Gaelic football and hurling ….. http://doras.dcu.ie/18960/2/J_F_Lennon_V2.pdf

Hope all the links still work.

 

[jatz14]

Quite the opposite. The Gaels were very organised when it came to sports and played sports regularly unlike sporadic English football.
The Gaels invented golf, hockey, hurley and a number of lesser sports.

" Though references to Irish Football are practically non-existent before the 1600s the earliest records of a recognised precursor to modern Gaelic football Bardic sources provide an insight into the character of the pre-GAA games. Hurling predominates, but there are also references to football. Fragments of the ancient Brehon Laws show that hurling was regulated from at least the eighth century. After the Norman invasion of the 12th century, hurling was proscribed by the English Crown. The first record of Gaelic football is in the Statutes of Galway (1527) which allowed the playing of football but banned hurling."

https://www.rebelogcoaching.com/library/history-gaelic-football/



Yes, nationalisation pushed for codification but probably Gaelic football was so strong that nobody had been bothered to write rules.

Australian Football could have been heavily influenced by Gaelic Football. We simply don't know.
The problem is the overlap of rules. Kicking, catching and running was common to ALL football at the time.

I think it so weak, it was hardly mentioned at all, let alone codified. Wether nationalists totally invented what became Gaelic, I cannot say, what I can say is, they sold the idea of it with an invented mythology of it. This they would hardly have needed to do if it was an established traditional sport.

The extent to which codified rules were seemingly adopted from Australian football suggests it was either not widely established, or was a series of local games without much in common.

Even a vague commonality in Ireland about how the game was played would have made borrowing from Australia unnecessary, especially by nationalists.

Sent from my XT1068 using Tapatalk

 

[Les Malone]

I think it so weak, it was hardly mentioned at all, let alone codified. Wether nationalists totally invented what became Gaelic, I cannot say, what I can say is, they sold the idea of it with an invented mythology of it. This they would hardly have needed to do if it was an established traditional sport.

The extent to which codified rules were seemingly adopted from Australian football suggests it was either not widely established, or was a series of local games without much in common.

Even a vague commonality in Ireland about how the game was played would have made borrowing from Australia unnecessary, especially by nationalists.

Sent from my XT1068 using Tapatalk

I would say it was a series of local games that did not have rules in common or maybe any rules. maybe just a free for all. or like kids do make up the rules as you go which could change by the day or week.

Also the Irishman involved in the codification of AF Thomas Smith was a protestant Irishman educated at Trinity in Dublin which was a Protestant Uni, although some Protestants were Nationalists, it is unlikely he was, that school had a Rugby influence.

That is not to say that there is not an Irish influence on our game, i believe there is.

 

[jatz14]

I would say it was a series of local games that did not have rules in common or maybe any rules. maybe just a free for all. or like kids do make up the rules as you go which could change by the day or week.

Also the Irishman involved in the codification of AF Thomas Smith was a protestant Irishman educated at Trinity in Dublin which was a Protestant Uni, although some Protestants were Nationalists, it is unlikely he was, that school had a Rugby influence.

That is not to say that there is not an Irish influence on our game, i believe there is.

I agree there is an Irish influence. Footy spread from the WASP community elsewhere pretty fast. I just dont think there is a Gaelic football connection. What we know of Wills time in England, and what he would have encountered there, and what he may have encountered of Marn Grook provides all the pieces he would have needed for his football code. Supposing an involvement of Gaelic football, when as far as I am aware, he never went to Ireland, never encountered Irish football, and it wasn't played in Australia, isnt necessary.

The only thing to base it on is the similarity, and there is more convincing evidence to suggest that comes from influence from Australia to Ireland, not vice versa.

 

[RedV3x]

This may interest you.

Yes, I'd come across that article and another about the similarities in the posts and rules.
That makes a strong argument that Gaelic Football and Australian Football had similarities
and had converged and then diverged at some point..

 

[RedV3x]

I just dont think there is a Gaelic football connection.

Gaelic Football and hurling were played. We don't know exactly what influence it had.

"In the early 1840’s there was a newspaper report of a form of Gaelic football played in South Australia and it is acknowledged that similar games were played on the goldfields of Victoria in the 1850’s."

This website is temporarily unavailable

Gaelic football

Call time on typos in historic articles about Gaelic football, the round-ball game that has been played in Victoria since Irish immigrants introduced it to the goldfields in the 1850s.

www.slv.vic.gov.au

What we know of Wills time in England,

Is quite irrelevant as the rules drawn up by a committee in Melbourne and that committee is recorded as not wanting to adopt any existing rules
and that's what they did - they created new rules. Tom Wills pushed Australian Football not any other.

 

[Les Malone]

Gaelic Football and hurling were played. We don't know exactly what influence it had.

"In the early 1840’s there was a newspaper report of a form of Gaelic football played in South Australia and it is acknowledged that similar games were played on the goldfields of Victoria in the 1850’s."

This website is temporarily unavailable

Gaelic football

Call time on typos in historic articles about Gaelic football, the round-ball game that has been played in Victoria since Irish immigrants introduced it to the goldfields in the 1850s.

www.slv.vic.gov.au

Is quite irrelevant as the rules drawn up by a committee in Melbourne and that committee is recorded as not wanting to adopt any existing rules
and that's what they did - they created new rules. Tom Wills pushed Australian Football not any other.

Hurling was also played at Arden street before the footy club, and NMFC is one of the oldest of any code in the world, there is also a theory that NMFC got its nickname the Shinboners from the Hurlers who would wack players in the shin with either the stick or sliotar.

Arden street was the home of Victorian hurling at one stage.

 

[Les Malone]

I agree there is an Irish influence. Footy spread from the WASP community elsewhere pretty fast. I just dont think there is a Gaelic football connection. What we know of Wills time in England, and what he would have encountered there, and what he may have encountered of Marn Grook provides all the pieces he would have needed for his football code. Supposing an involvement of Gaelic football, when as far as I am aware, he never went to Ireland, never encountered Irish football, and it wasn't played in Australia, isnt necessary.

The only thing to base it on is the similarity, and there is more convincing evidence to suggest that comes from influence from Australia to Ireland, not vice versa.

I would agree, they obviously played some form of footy in Ireland and no doubt took to it very quickly in Australia, the goldfields in particular.

It was just the right time right place.

Gaelic football as we know it came much later.

 

[RedV3x]

I would agree, they obviously played some form of footy in Ireland and no doubt took to it very quickly in Australia, the goldfields in particular.

It was just the right time right place.

Gaelic football as we know it came much later.

Making a distinction between a distinction between Irish Football and and Gaelic Football is a little pedantic.
Australian Football is nothing like the original rules of Melbourne - no tackling, pushing allowed, tripping allowed and only picking the ball up off the hop.
Did the games converge or were they a somewhat similar from the start?
The Gaels were very organised in their sports. it is probable that hurling influenced Gaelic Football in their long common history.

 

[Gigantor]

8 or 9 of the original rules were rules already common in various British ball games of the time.
On top of that, forms of folk football had existed all over the British Isles (and in continental Europe) for centuries.
So entering the years of 1858-59, one need look no further than the above for the roots of Australian Football.
Also, there is nothing surprising about reading reports of a football game occurring in the 1840s (see point 2 above).

 

[RedV3x]

So entering the years of 1858-59,

The possible influences on the creation of the rules of Melbourne Football were Gaelic Football, British football, Marngrook, the hot weather leading to hard dry grounds, the demand for a winter sport and a sense of freedom.

The game very quickly moved away from those original rules and obviously was not rooted in those rules.
The game of Australian Football is rooted in evolution by Australians that is undeniable.
No other game has evolved so quickly and so regularly, but the catch and kick idea remains an integral part of the game to this day.

 

[Gigantor]

I would have thought most of the original rules remain.

 

[RedV3x]

I would have thought most of the original rules remain.

These 1859 rules apply to general play.

VI. Any player catching the ball "directly" from the foot may call "mark". He then has a free kick; no player from the opposite side being allowed to come "inside" the spot marked.
VII. Tripping and pushing are both allowed (but no hacking) when any player is in rapid motion or in possession of the ball, except in the case provided for in Rule 6.
VIII. The ball may be taken in hand "only" when caught from the foot, or on the hop. In "no case" shall it be "lifted" from the ground.

Only VI remains. VII and VIII are reversed

 

[Gigantor]

As I said, most of the original rules remain.

 

[RedV3x]

As I said, most of the original rules remain.

And you'd be wrong yet again.
The rules that matter and are unique to the game have diametrically changed.


I. The distance between the Goals and the Goal Posts shall be decided upon by the Captains of the sides playing. No

II. The Captains on each side shall toss for choice of Goal; the side losing the toss has the kick off from the centre point between the Goals No

III. A Goal must be kicked fairly between the posts, without touching either of them, or a portion of the person of any player on either side. Yes

IV. The game shall be played within a space of not more than 200 yards wide, the same to be measured equally on each side of a line drawn through the centres of the two Goals; and two posts to be called the "kick off posts" shall be erected at a distance of 20 yards on each side of the Goal posts at both ends, and in a straight line with them. No

V. In case the ball is kicked "behind" Goal, any one of the side behind whose Goal it is kicked may bring it 20 yards in front of any portion of the space between the "kick off" posts, and shall kick it as nearly as possible in line with the opposite Goal. No

VI. Any player catching the ball "directly" from the foot may call "mark". He then has a free kick; no player from the opposite side being allowed to come "inside" the spot marked. Yes

VII. Tripping and pushing are both allowed (but no hacking) when any player is in rapid motion or in possession of the ball, except in the case provided for in Rule 6. No

VIII. The ball may be taken in hand "only" when caught from the foot, or on the hop. In "no case" shall it be "lifted" from the ground. No

IX. When a ball goes out of bounds (the same being indicated by a row of posts) it shall be brought back to the point where it crossed the boundary-line, and thrown in at right angles with that line. No

X. The ball, while in play, may under no circumstances be thrown. Yes

 

[Gigantor]

Take another look.

 

[RedV3x]

Take another look.

I have and game has still gone major changes in almost every way.
The adopted Geelong rules of 1866 give a better idea of a game.

6. Ball must be bounced every 10 or 20 yards if carried. Absent from the original rules.

7. Tripping, holding, hacking prohibited. Pushing with hands or body is allowed when any player is in rapid motion or in possession of ball, except in the case of a mark. No holding is implied but not spelt out.

8. Mark is when a player catches the ball before it hits the ground and has been clearly kicked by another player. Rule is improved and integral.

9. Handball only allowed if ball held clearly in one hand and punched or hit out with other. If caught, no mark. Throwing prohibited. The subject of passing by hand is addressed. Clearly anti-rugby and very possibly a Gaelic influence.