[citation needed] It would take another seventeen years before an annual clash between an official City and Country side was agreed upon during the 1928 season.

[citation needed] Both sides were originally made up of the best players playing in the Country Rugby League of New South Wales and the Sydney-based NSWRL Premiership.

[citation needed] The players who represented the City and Country sides came from the National Rugby League competition in Australia.

The match was played before the State of Origin series and was often referred to as a selection trial for the New South Wales Blues team.

Country versus City had long played a part in New South Wales sporting history, with the first traces of the concept being linked back as far as 1886.

However, similar to State of Origin before 1980, Country Rugby League faced the problem of its major players being snapped up by the richer Sydney clubs, draining the regional representative sides.

It was not until 1987, with the recent inclusions of Canberra, Illawarra and Newcastle in the NSWRL competition, that the "player drain" issue was addressed.

The competition was not revived until four years later, when the National Rugby League saw the match's value in terms of media exposure, television ratings and the merit of taking the fixture to country towns (the last time the game was played in Sydney was 1993 at Parramatta Stadium while the last full time NRL ground to host the game was WIN Stadium in Wollongong).