Today in history - the All Blacks' very first game

Today in history - the All Blacks' very first game

22 May 2014     Today, May 22, 2014, marks a special day in the All Blacks’ history – 130 years ago they played their very first match and kicked off their record in style with a win – and had their first experience of playing in the winds and wet in Wellington.

On Thursday 22 May, 1884 New Zealand faced a Wellington team (described as a ‘sixteen of Wellington’) at Newtown Park before catching the SS Hauroto to Sydney later that day for their first overseas tour. The men of that team are regarded as the first All Blacks with Otago forward James Allan credited as All Black No. 1, based on alphabetical order.

The Evening Post reported that “just before the game commenced several heavy showers  of rain descended and rendered play exceedingly unpleasant” and that “the wind was  blowing strongly across the field”.

The match started at 1.50pm, with two 25-minute halves. History records the score as 9-0 although the media reported it as “two goals to love”. Wellington's Harry Roberts scored the first try for New Zealand, while Thomas "Darby" Ryan, the three-quarter-back from Auckland,  kicked the first ever conversion and dropped goal for New Zealand. Roberts later achieved another first; when his son was selected in the 1913 All Blacks they became the first father/son pair to play for the All Blacks.

Further attempts at goal were made throughout the match but were generally prevented by the wind, while the small crowd was treated to several grand runs by the backs, in particular John Taiaroa, a cousin of rugby legends Tom Ellison and Joe Warbrick.

The team that travelled to Australia was made up of players from 12 clubs from the Auckland, Canterbury, Otago and Wellington Unions, captained by William Millton of Canterbury and managed by Mr S.E. Sleigh of Dunedin. The team played in dark blue with a gold fern leaf worn on the left breast - New Zealand’s national rugby team did not start wearing black or being referred to as the All Blacks until the 1890s.  The team won all eight of its matches in Australia, scoring a total of 167 points and conceding just 17.

Noted rugby historian Arthur C. Swan later attributed the growth in the number of rugby clubs from 1884 onwards to “the placing of a National side in the field”.

Since that first match, 1130 men have played for the All Blacks with Jeffery Toomaga-Allen the most recent to make his debut. The All Blacks have played 1235 matches, including 512 Tests, with an overall winning record of 84.3 per cent – one of the best records in
international sport. The team has scored almost three times as many points as they’ve conceded: 33,225 for and 11,751 against.

james Allan has the honour of being the first All Black, theres a name for new born kiwi boys,

the All Blacks are not only known as the greatest rugby team in the known universe, but also one of the greatest sports team period.

there are three records which really stand out for me though,,,,

1) All Blacks are the only team in the world to have a 100% winning percentage in a season of rugby.
this record is even mopre impressive when u consider the level of opponents which included
les bleu x 4
Boks x 2
wallabies x 3
england x 1
ireland x 1

i love that we racked up 100% wins, without having to stuff the fixtures with easy beat teams like scotland x 2, samoa, italy etc

2) All Blacks are one of three teams to have been ranked No1 in the IRB rankings.
but unlike the other two lesser teams, we have been ranked No1 for over 90% of the time since inception.

All Blacks have also never been p;laced lower then No3 on the rankings, and that was for a total of 6 days, wowsers, o_O

3) All Blacks are the only team to have won 100% of their RWC pool games, every team to ever play in the RWC has lost at least one pool game.
considering the All Blacks had two more RWCs then the Boks, some saffas might find that a tad bit embarrasing, but this isnt about the boks, its about the mighty All Blacks,

the beautiful thing with these three records is that, all three are actually much harder to do then actually winning a RWC, i mean 4 RWC champions, but there have been only three No1 ranked teams, 1 team to win everything in a season and 1 team to win all their pool stage matches.
hmmmmm food for thought,

Food for thought . . . why did it take until 1921 before the Springboks and All Blacks finally played one another? Both countries had some great teams before that time. Would have been a treat to see Bennie Osler and the 1925 Lions-conquering Springboks take on the All Black "Invincibles". 
Going back even further, I reckon the Morkel-dominated Springboks of 1912/13 would have absolutely pasted the all Blacks of that era.

@rooy,

where have u been man, lightbringers are flying under the radar on all threads at the moment.

have u been giving ur fantasy team hellish work outs??? it might explain ur dominant standings across all the major comps.

anyways, no idea why it took so long before they played, but im guessing back then the rugby landscape of who was who wasnt quite as clear as it is now days.

i remmeber reading a book on NZ rugby history which seemd to imply that back in the days, travelling to the UK was more the rave for preferred rugby destinations, as many kiwi players had family to whoim they were still close to back there, and travelling was by not where near as easy and forgiving as it is these days.

I'm sure you're right. Back in the day there would have been regular ships between Britain and New Zealand and between Britain and South Africa, but probably hardly any between South Africa and New Zealand. Both of our countries' early rugby history was almost exclusively against the Home Nations when we went there or the British Lions when they came here. R eal rugby only started in 1921!

Yes, I've been a bit scarce around these parts lately mainly because I'm so busy at work these days. I'll probably only be an occasional poster for some months to come, but I don't let that affect my Fantasy efforts and every Thursday evening I'm doing my Fantasy homework and using this site (and your weekly thread) to make sure all my players are starting.

Come on the Lightbringers and come on the Sharks!

 Rooitwit you busy at work - that is stetching ones credulity. What work might that be? (One must never denigrate apersons work no matter how simple) 
Maybe ou rooitwit has become a professional fantasy rugby player. Something to do with fantasy would be my guess! 
Until isolation we were ahead of the abs in tests. FACT. Boks number 1 ABS number 2 - the normal order in world rugby for many decades.Ou saSUE hallucinating again.saSUE the abs were clearly not the better side on a number of occassiosn and your two wins over the Boks a result of Romans efforts - a case that is well documented and irrefutable. Roman was disciplined for his shocker.

Bullshit Hasbeeno! How many times must I prove the ABs had a superior winning percentage to the Boks pre-isolation?The ABs have always been No.1 and probably always will be!Moolaa putting facts in front of all on this site!  

Right, as if percentage wins against other countries counts more than the head-to-head between the Springboks and the All Blacks. Please man, stop trying to spin everything in your favour.

The All Blacks only overtook the Springboks in the head-to-head in the 2nd test of the 1996 series. Up until isolation the score was Springboks 20, All Blacks 15 with 2 draws. Case closed.

 I think overall record against all countries is what counts Rooi doesn't it?That's how all world rankings are calculated and the only fair comparison in any sport. Of course fairness and SA are poles apart. Witness Thug Deysel!

Well Moolaa, if you prefer to include the record against other countries then knock yourself out, but stop contradicting us when we say the Springboks had the upper hand over New Zealand prior to isolation because . . . ummm . . . we did! 20 wins to 15 . . . and no amount of wins you guys had over the then hopeless Aussies will change that.

If you still insist on including the record against other countries when measuring the Springboks vs the All Blacks then ponder this . . . prior to South Africa's sporting isolation, the Springboks were the only rugby-playing nation with a plus score against every other country. You can wank on about your percentage wins against everyone else until the cows come home but you can't say you had a plus score against everyone . . . and we did.

Once again, case closed!

PS And before some indignant Kiwi comes and lectures me about what has happened since isolation, I'm well aware you've had the wood over us since then but this is specifically pre-isolation I'm talking about . . . because plenty Kiwis out there seemed to think they were the top team back in those years.

20-15!

 Well said R ooinek ou mooo la put firmly in his place.
The simple fact is if we ever get our house in order the abs we will be second once more. Its so obvious it barly needs mentioning.

Rooi, I'm not arguing that SA had a better win/loss over the ABs pre-isolation; it's that Hasbeeno always bangs on about SA being No.1 at that time where in fact that's not correct. The ABs had a better overall record and also did not include some wins over dubious South American opposition as the Boks conveniently did to bolster their record!The current ranking system works this way and there's no other fair way of doing it.