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The first ever rugby tournament
that occurred in New Zealand happened in 1870 of May
in Nelson. It was between the Nelson Football Club
and Nelson College. The game quickly became popular
and in 1875 of September first inter-provincial
competition occurred in Dunedin, between the Dunedin
clubs and the Auckland clubs. The first Provincial
Unions were organized in 1879 in Wellington and
Canterbury.
In 1892, the NZRU or New Zealand Rugby Union was
organized to head the rugby union game on a national
level.
At the time, the national union was called the NZRFU
or the New Zealand Rugby Football Union. The name
was shortened officially in 2006 by removing the
term “football”. |
On April 16, 1892, Saturday, during a meeting which occurred
in Wellington, the NZRU was organized. Initiatory members
were the Provincial Unions of Hawke’s Bay, Auckland,
Marlborough, Manawatu, South Canterbury, Nelson, Wairarapa,
Taranaki, Wellington, and Wanganui. Simultaneously, 3 major
Unions of the South Island Provincial which were Otago,
Canterbury, and Southland, protested the central dominance
of the New Zealand Rugby Union.
The strongest proponent of the NZRU and its first secretary,
Ernest Hoben, was the union’s driving force in its
formation.
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To give credit to Hoben’s
contribution, the Wellington offices of the NZRU’s
has an Ernest Hoben Room which currently exhibits
all twenty six provincial jerseys beside photos of
past teams of All Blacks and each and every name of
members who had ever played in the All Black rugby
team.
With the indoctrination of Canterbury, the Bush,
Otago, Horowhenua, Southland, Poverty Bay, and West
Coast unions in 1895, the NZRU was believed to be a
united and complete assemblage of all rugby players
of New Zealand. Nevertheless, the map of New Zealand
rugby would be done over several times in the next
decades. During the 1921 Annual Meeting, the New
Zealand Rugby Union elected George Dixon as its
first Life Member. He was the manager of the
original All Blacks in 1905 and the first Chairman
of the NZRU in 1904. |
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Another first was the pre-Annual Meeting of the provincial
delegates to set up delegate fixtures for the upcoming
season, bringing in a new degree of national coordination.
The New Zealand Rugby Union formally assumed the black
jersey as the national playing strip in 1893 and chose the
first national team sanctioned by the NZRU for the
Australian tour. Still, the original team of New Zealand
chosen in 1884 to tour New South Wales is recognized as a
New Zealand team and its team members recognized as All
Blacks.
The NZRU was indoctrinated as a member of the IRB in 1948,
and subsequently gave up its delegacy on the RFU (Rugby
Football Union) of England. The NZRU’s first attempt to gain
membership in the IRB happened in 1908.
Succeeding the 1995 Rugby World Cup competition in South
Africa, international rugby became professional with the
repeal of all conviction regulations by the IRB. The NZRU
negotiated with and signed up New Zealand players of rugby
for the first time.
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