On their return home, they stopped over in Australia to play another 10 games against clubs from the newly formed New South Wales Rugby League.

[citation needed] 13 June 1908 saw the first game of rugby league played by the Northern Union's new rules on New Zealand soil; as a benefit match for Baskerville's widowed mother.

The first match in New Zealand was played at Wellington on 13 June 1908 before a crowd of nearly 7,000, which saw an exhibition between two teams drawn from the touring side.

The NZRU took it upon themselves to pressure potential converts, officials, sponsors and ground owners into not giving the rugby league upstarts any room to move.

[3] By the early 1990s New South Wales' club competition matches were being broadcast in New Zealand with far greater viewing numbers than that of domestic rugby union.

[4] A New Zealand club team, the Auckland Warriors, was added to the top-level Australian Rugby League competition in 1995.

In 2009, the much-mooted State of Origin-like concept called "Kiwi Roots", which would involve two domestic New Zealand representative teams playing each other, was announced to commence in 2010.

In 2010 a poll released by UMR Research showed that in Auckland, home of the Warriors, more people were interested in the NRL premiership (33%) than rugby union's ITM Cup (26%).

In 2010 the competition replaced the Bartercard Premiership following a Sparc funded review and restructure of the New Zealand Rugby League.

The National Rugby League (NRL) is Australia's top-level competition for the sport of rugby league[10] and the New Zealand Warriors are New Zealand's only team in the NRL; in addition they have a "B team" in the NSW Cup, one of Australia's second tier state competitions.

Wheelchair rugby league saw its introduction to New Zealand in November 2024 after the formation of a national side to host two games against Australia.