Sydney Cricket Ground - Rugby Union

Rugby Union

Club rugby was first played at the then Civil and Military Ground as early as 1870, and the first inter-colonial game was played there in 1882. NSW beat Queensland 28–4. From June 1911 the NSW Rugby League had exclusive use of the SCG, as well as the Sydney Sports Ground and the Sydney Showground, preventing rugby union games from being played there. Over the years the SCG hosted 71 rugby union tests before Sydney international matches were moved first to Waratah Rugby Park (Concord Oval), then the Sydney Football Stadium and later Stadium Australia. The largest ever crowd to watch a rugby union match at the SCG was 49,327 who saw NSW played New Zealand on 13 July 1907.

Of those 71 tests none could have been more dramatic than the game against the South African Springboks on 7 August 1971. Marred by anti-apartheid protests, field invasions and objects being thrown onto the ground and halted several times to removed golf balls and protestors it was won by South Africa who went through the tour undefeated.

The SCG has been both a happy and unhappy hunting ground for Australian rugby union. One of the worst incidents to occur there was the sad demise of Ken Catchpole's international career. Robbed of a glorious retirement, his career ended in a disgraceful scandal. Australia was playing the New Zealand All Blacks and while Catchpole was trapped on the bottom of a ruck New Zealander second rower, Colin Meads, tried to drag him out by one leg, splitting him like a wishbone. Australia, although well beaten on this occasion, was well served by international-standard halfbacks and 20-year-old John Hipwell ran on for his first test as Catchpole was carried off. It was a sad end to an illustrious career.

Dramatic though that game was, no test could have been as important in the development of Australian Rugby Union than the game against the touring Welsh team in 1978.

The 1978 Welsh had arrived in Australia as (the then) Five Nations Champions, Triple Crown winners, the best rugby union team in the world but they were a sad and sorry bunch by the time they got to Sydney for the last game of the tour, the second test. The team was decimated by injuries and in two earlier tour games had suffered a last minute loss to Sydney and a humiliating defeat midweek to the Australian Capital Territory.

Rumours abounded that the Welsh were ready for a big 'get square' with Australian prop Steve Finnane, the so-called 'enforcer' of the Australian team. Finnane and other senior members of the team had vowed to avenge the defeat of the Australians by the Welsh on their last tour of the UK several years before. The SCG crowd didn't have long to wait because after the very first scrum Welsh prop Graham Price came out holding his bloodied jaw, the victim of a Finnane punch. Price had bored in on Finnane, his opposite number in the front row and Finnane reacted.

After Price left the field and the game continued for a short while until the Welsh, using a pre-determined code word, sparked an all-in-brawl. Wales lost the test and the two-test series.

In 1979 there was a one-off game against the All Blacks at the SCG. The kicking of a young five-eighth named Tony Melrose closed out the New Zealanders and Australia won a try-less game 12–6, to take back the Bledisloe Cup for the first time since 1949. The following year the Australians showed it was no fluke by beating New Zealand two tests to one in Australia to successfully defend the trophy for the first time.