The localised successes but geographic boundedness of Australian Rules football raise
interesting questions about the relationship of sports to the regional character of the
South-West Pacific. Although it is called ‘Australian’, the game has historically been
restricted to roughly half of the population of the colonies and states, failing to
capitalise on its initial flowering in Queensland and New South Wales. In the
nineteenth century, it was better known by its urban (Melbourne) and colonial
(Victorian) origins. Although sport historians have occasionally sought to explain the
game’s failure to win popular followings in northern Australia, the more intriguing
question is why it failed to survive in New Zealand – the colony that had most in
common with the game’s birthplace in Victoria. This paper explores the diffusion of
the code to New Zealand during the colonial era, and discusses the wider ramifications
for its eventual loss of purchase across the Tasman Sea.