Editing Australian rules football (section)

=== Origins ===
{{Main|Origins of Australian football}}
[[File:Tom wills statue.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Statue next to the [[Melbourne Cricket Ground]] on the approximate site of the 1858 football match between [[Melbourne Grammar]] and [[Scotch College, Melbourne|Scotch College]]. [[Tom Wills]] is depicted umpiring behind two young players contesting the ball. The plaque reads that Wills "did more than any other person – as a footballer and umpire, co-writer of the rules and promoter of the game – to develop Australian football during its first decade."<ref>[http://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/culture/sport/display/32315-first-australian-rules-game First Australian Rules Game] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130927234137/http://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/culture/sport/display/32315-first-australian-rules-game |date=27 September 2013 }}, Monument Australia. Retrieved 18 June 2013.</ref>]]
Primitive forms of football were played sporadically in the Australian colonies in the first half of the 19th century. Compared to [[cricket]] and [[horse racing]], football was considered a mere "amusement" by colonists at the time, and while little is known about these early one-off games, evidence does not support a causal link with Australian football.{{sfn|Hess|2008|pp=1–3}} In [[Melbourne]], in 1858, in a move that would help to shape Australian football in its formative years, private schools (then termed "[[wikt:public school#Noun|public schools]]" in accordance with nomenclature in England) began organising football games inspired by [[English public school football games|precedents at English public schools]].{{sfn|Pennings|2012|p=8}} The earliest match, held on 15 June, was between [[Melbourne Grammar School|Melbourne Grammar]] and St Kilda Grammar.{{sfn|Pennings|2012|pp=13–14}}

On 10 July 1858, the Melbourne-based ''[[Bell's Life in Victoria and Sporting Chronicle]]'' published a letter by [[Tom Wills]], captain of the [[Victoria cricket team]], calling for the formation of a "foot-ball club" with a "code of laws" to keep cricketers fit during winter.{{sfn|de Moore|2011|pp=86–87}} Born in Australia, Wills played a nascent form of [[rugby football]] while a pupil at [[Rugby School]] in England, and returned to his homeland a star athlete and cricketer. Two weeks later, Wills' friend, cricketer [[James Bryant (Australian cricketer)|Jerry Bryant]], posted an advertisement for a [[scratch match]] at the [[Richmond Paddock]] adjoining the [[Melbourne Cricket Ground]] (MCG).{{sfn|Pennings|2012|p=14}} This was the first of several "kickabouts" held that year involving members of the [[Melbourne Cricket Club]], including Wills, Bryant, [[William Hammersley|W. J. Hammersley]] and [[J. B. Thompson]]. Trees were used as goalposts and play typically lasted an entire afternoon. Without an agreed-upon code of laws, some players were guided by rules they had learned in the British Isles, "others by no rules at all".{{sfn|Blainey|2010|pp=23–26}} Another milestone in 1858 was a 40-a-side match played under experimental rules between Melbourne Grammar and [[Scotch College, Melbourne|Scotch College]], held at the Richmond Paddock. Umpired by Wills and teacher [[John Macadam]], it began on 7 August and continued over two subsequent Saturdays, ending in a draw with each side kicking one goal.<ref name="piesse">{{Cite book| author=[[Ken Piesse]]| title=The Complete Guide to Australian Football | publisher=Pan Macmillan Australia | year=1995 | isbn=0-330-35712-3 |page=303}}</ref> It is commemorated with a statue outside the MCG, and the two schools have since competed annually in the [[Cordner–Eggleston Cup]], the world's [[oldest football competitions|oldest continuous football competition]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Paproth |first=Daniel |date=4 June 2012|title=The oldest of school rivals|work=The Weekly Review Stonnington|access-date=19 June 2013 |url=http://www.theweeklyreviewstonnington.com.au/story/286185/the-oldest-of-school-rivals/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203013042/http://www.theweeklyreviewstonnington.com.au/story/286185/the-oldest-of-school-rivals/ |archive-date=3 December 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Since the 1920s, it has been suggested that Australian football may have been derived from the Irish sport of [[Gaelic football]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Collins |first=Tony |editor-first=Stephen |editor-last=Wagg |title=Myths and Milestones in the History of Sport |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2011 |page=14 |chapter=Chapter 1: National Myths, Imperial Pasts and the Origins of Australian Rules Football |isbn=978-0-230-24125-1}}</ref> However, there is no archival evidence in favour of a Gaelic influence, and the style of play shared between the two modern codes appeared in Australia long before the Irish game evolved in a similar direction.{{sfn|Blainey|2010|pp=187–196}}{{sfn|Hibbins|Ruddell|2009|p=8}} Another theory, first proposed in 1983, posits that Wills, having grown up among [[Indigenous Australians|Aboriginals]] in Victoria, may have seen or played the Aboriginal ball game of [[Marn Grook]], and incorporated some of its features into early Australian football. There is only circumstantial evidence that he knew of the game, and according to biographer Greg de Moore's research, Wills was "almost solely influenced by his experience at Rugby School".{{sfn|de Moore|2011|pp=322–323}}