New South Wales Football Association

Harry Hedger and George Walker, rugby players of the Waratah Football Club were among the first to agitate for the adoption of Australian rules in New South Wales, citing the enormous popularity of the code in the rival colony of Victoria.

Having learned the game playing test matches against the Carlton Football Club of Melbourne in 1877 many others urged others to put aside their intercolonial rivalry and take up the sport.

[2] Some players, I am aware, can't swallow the idea of adopting the Victorian Game, simply because it is supposed to hail from the sister colony.

[10] Among the clubs that were formed were West Sydney, South Sydney, City, Our Boys, Granville, Wallsend, Merewether, Hamilton, St Ignatius and St Joseph college [11] along with Balmain and Woollahra formed a year later.

The NSWFA began a sharp decline in interest from 1890 which Healy (2022) attributes to a combination of the departure of the president and Cricket Phillip Sheridan (trustee of what is now the Sydney Cricket Ground) and an Australian economic depression leaving the association without access to enclosed grounds.