Abstract
This paper examines the process by which certain aspects of rugby league were developed in New Zealand. It seeks to explore the ways in which the New Zealand code became like its parent body, essentially a working-class game. It will demonstrate that timing was a critical element in the construction of rugby league in New Zealand, being influenced by an environment of war, Irish issues, the growth of the New Zealand Labour Party and regionalism. Nowhere were these elements more clearly revealed than in the conscription controversy, which thrust the nation's Catholic community to the forefront of national politics. In this atmosphere heightened sectarian tensions flowed into sport. All these issues crystallised in the Payne Trophy dispute, which will be the central feature of this study. A perceptive comment by the historian P.S. O'Connor, that 'Never before or after, even in the years of their greatest football teams, were the Marist Brothers the household phrase they became in 1917', although directed at one aspect of New Zealand life during the First World War, will be demonstrated to be relevant to many features of what was to unfold. 1
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