The Natives prepare to play in Queensland in July 1889 on the homeward leg of the tour. Bill Brien Collection The story of the Aboriginal cricket tour of 1868 - a decade before the first white Australian team went to Britain - has been told by John Mulvaney in Cricket Walkabout (Melbourne, 1967).
The title of 'The Originals' was bestowed on the next New Zealand rugby team to tour Britain, that of 1905-6, but even though it was soon forgotten, the Natives' tour was to have enduring significance for New Zealand rugby and society.
After playing nine matches in New Zealand and two in Melbourne in the southern winter of 1888 (with only two losses), the Natives set off for Britain by steamer.
Between their first and last matches in Britain, the Natives played on average every 2.3 days, compared with the modern routine of twice a week for parties of 30 or more.
Although 'hacking' (tackling players carrying the ball by kicking them) and tripping had been banned in the 1870s to make the game safe enough to appeal to 'gentlemen', rugby remained dangerous.
In 1888, while the gentlemen who ran the Rugby Union and the Empire were based in southern England, and the England test was played in London, the playing strength of the English game was in the north.
What effect did the Natives' tour have on rugby and wider New Zealand society? It showed that New Zealanders could compete on equal terms with representatives of the imperial centre at rugby in a way they were embarrassingly unable to do at cricket
The Citizens' All Black Tour Association, of which Ngai Tahu leader Frank Winter was a prominent member, campaigned to stop the selection of a racially based All Black touring team with the slogan 'No Maoris – No Tour'.
Tom Ellison was captain of NZ's first official rugby team
in 1893. He invented the wing forward position and in 1903 wrote one of the game's
first coaching manuals. Off
the field he worked as an interpreter in the Native Land Court and became one of the first Maori to be admitted to the Bar.
