Sean Fagan

With the sports betting industry on an ever upward trend, it’s abundantly clear that placing our hard-earned cash on the predicted performances of fellow humans worries few of us – despite the past decade of sport producing a plethora of match-fixing allegations and scandals, and an ever diminishing distance between…

The AFL proudly claims it created “A Game of Our Own.” In one sense it did. But so too had Tasmania. Written by Sean Fagan Long before the mainland code swept the southern colony, the island forged a distinctive Van Diemen’s Land style of football — locally dubbed the Tasmanian…

Rugby league in Australia has some lost and forgotten modes of scoring points. Written by Sean Fagan What we call a “field goal” today is more correctly termed a “drop goal.” The original “field goal” was an obscure, rarely seen feature of the rugby union laws inherited by rugby league…

Does an achieved feat have any value if it has been won too easily? William Webb Ellis first ran with the rugby ball, but he had to traverse a perilous field full of lurking dangers to do it. While Ellis was free in 1823 to hold the game’s traditions in…

You don’t have to go far to find someone that reckons Australia’s footballers are overpaid slackers. It’s a common enough cry; heard every time yet another footballer is brought into the public glare for his alleged distasteful behaviour. Written by Sean Fagan [originally published in Inside Sport] A decade after…

The first New Zealand rugby side came to Australia in 1884. The team’s enduring legacy is the tradition that they gave birth to – the haka. The Maori war cry made an instant and lasting impression. A Sydney newspaperman described it as “the sound given in good time and union…

Story written & researched by Sean Fagan for SaintsAndHeathens The first games of Rugby football in Australia were played in Tasmania in the 1840s. Thomas Hughes’ classic novel, Tom Brown’s Schooldays, is generally considered to be a semi-biographical account of life at Rugby School in the early 1830s. One of the…

30 years of State of Origin war and rivalry – a story told in thirty parts. New South Wales ‘Blues’ & Queensland ‘Maroons’ battling on ‘Origin’ lines since 1980. Written by Sean Fagan [originally published by ARL in State of Origin match program] DOWN TO THE WIRE. Few Game III…

A century ago Australian cricket was in the midst of a battle – not with England, but with itself. But no one foresaw that the fight between the fledgling Australian Board of Control and the country’s top cricketers would lead to the establishment of a new football code in this…

In an attempt to gain “cultural connection” for its GWS team, Australian rules has turned to the code’s historical ties to Sydney’s west. However, the stories being brought forth are at best tenuous, at worst creative myth-making. The AFL’s 2008 “The Game That Made Australia” marketing campaign faltered badly north…

You would think that of all the football codes, the one that would put the interests of its professional players at the top of the game would be rugby league – after all, unlike every other sport, it only came into existence at all as a means to provide fairer…

It’s no secret that the bedrock of rugby in Australia is the private schools. It may not quite be a rugby-axiom, but it is still largely true that if you want to have a serious shot at Wallaby stardom, the optimum pathway is through the GPS (Great Public Schools) system,…

If “Australeague” talks were successful 100 years ago, you wouldn’t have an excuse to hate those other footy codes … We’d all be watching the same game. Written by Sean Fagan [originally published in Inside Sport] It seemingly wasn’t a big enough laugh for the sporting gods to have “blessed”…

So, with the signing of Israel Folau and Karmichael Hunt complete, the AFL now has its Ringling Brothers – two NRL stars to act as wandering AFL troubadours through western Sydney and the Gold Coast. Written by Sean Fagan [originally published in The Sun-Herald] Although Folau is still a NRL…

In the cavalcade of great grand finals to remember, the 1969 Balmain v Souths encounter invariably gets a mention. It’s the story of the upstart Tigers outfit that managed to bring down the mighty Rabbitohs 11 points to 2, and thwart what ultimately would have been five premierships in a…

In rugby league greatness is not measured by what a man says, but by what he does. That Darren Lockyer now stands on the brink of surpassing the milestones of not one, but three, members of the ‘Team of the Century’ provides irrefutable evidence of his ranking amongst the code’s…

It’s an intriguing question: Through the last quarter of the 19th century, how did rugby in New Zealand, New South Wales and Queensland manage to repel the advance of Australasian (later Australian) rules football – a code that was deliberately made safer to play and more spectacular to watch than…

Claims that Australian rules football was born of a single match played in 1858 are nonsensical.  Australian rules lore tells us the code was born of a single match played in 1858. What the “Australian rulers” don’t choose to mention is that it was played between two schools using rugby…

We know they were great – their names and deeds have left an indelible imprint in the annals of the game. From Messenger “The Master” in 1908, to Churchill “The Little Master” in 1958, and the procession of stars in between. Written by Sean Fagan [originally published in Rugby League…

1. An overview of the origins & history of the play-the-ball.2. The modern play-the-ball under the 10m rule and interchange “The play-the-ball should simply be a means to safely and quickly restart the game after a tackle, and not be the game itself.” Written by Sean Fagan Rugby League began…

The story of a 1915 San Francisco based international rugby league tournament and the Rugby League World Cup. Written by Sean Fagan While its professional club competitions have provided the cornerstone of rugby league’s long and rich history, representing and supporting nations at the code’s international level has been equally…