page_title: 1907–08 New Zealand rugby tour of Australia and Great Britain
section_title: Tour preparations
hierarchical_section_title: 1907–08 New Zealand rugby tour of Australia and Great Britain / Tour preparations
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo taken in 1907 of en:Albert Henry Baskerville, en:rugby league pioneer. Due to age of photo copyright expried.
context_page_description: The 1907–1908 New Zealand rugby tour of Australia and Great Britain was made by a group of New Zealand rugby footballers who played matches in Australia, Ceylon, England and Wales between 1907 and 1908. Most of the matches were played under the rules of the Northern Union, a sport that is today known as rugby league. As such, the team were the immediate predecessors of the New Zealand national rugby league team. The tour had a large role in establishing rugby league in both Australia and New Zealand, and also gave birth to international rugby league. The tour party has come to be known as the professional All Blacks or All Golds, although at the time they were commonly referred to as the All Blacks—a named popularised by the New Zealand rugby union team that toured the Northern Hemisphere in 1905.
  The idea for a professional rugby tour was conceived by Albert Baskiville, a player from the Wellington region of New Zealand. Baskiville managed to recruit a significant number of international and provincial representatives for the team; including George Smith who toured with the All Blacks team of 1905. The team played their first match in Sydney in 1907 against New South Wales.
context_section_description: Albert Baskiville was well known in rugby circles, playing for the Oriental club and on the verge of Wellington provincial selection. He had also in 1907 published a book entitled Modern Rugby Football: New Zealand Methods which explained how to play the game and was widely read. He was inspired to launch a tour to play the clubs in the Northern Union by an article in the Daily Mail written by F W Cooper. The article, written by a Northern Union advocate, said that while the Originals tour had been successful it was a shame that they had not played any of the northern clubs, which at the time of the 1895 break away were regarded as some of the strongest clubs in England. Baskiville had conversations with several prominent rugby players, including the famous Original George William Smith who had talked to Northern Union officials and J J Giltinan about starting the code in Sydney. Smith's role in starting the game in Australasia was crucial as he had a wide set of connections and was a well known sporting celebrity, being an Original, a world class sprinter and a champion jockey.
  In early 1907 Baskiville wrote to the Northern Rugby Football Union (NRFU) asking if they would wish to host a tour of a New Zealand rugby team. As the North of England had not had any international rugby since the tour of the 1888-1889 New Zealand Native football team, the NRFU was enthusiastic. On 26 March 1907 it advised its member clubs that it was "very favourably disposed" to the tour and suggested that the tourists be paid 70% of the gates with a guarantee of £3000. The Northern Union informed Baskiville that the tour should go ahead and by May plans were firmly underway in New Zealand. Baskiville then resigned his job at the New Zealand Post Office to plan the tour full-time.
  News of the tour was first publicly broken by the New Zealand Herald which ran a story on 13 May 1907 about a possible professional rugby tour. It was extraordinary the level of secrecy that the New Zealand organisers had achieved, with the news being broken via England. Opposition to the tour was vocal with the New Zealand Rugby Union condemning the tour and the media being generally supportive of the amateur game and its ideals of amateurism. However, as the co-operative nature of the tour became more widely known the touring party gained some public sympathy and the Rugby Union appeared to be increasingly the one out of touch with public opinion.
  Baskiville assembled a team of selectors; Duncan McGregor, Massa Johnston, Hercules Richard Wright and George William Smith, and they began to think about the type of players they wished to bring on the tour. Knowing the rule changes that the Northern Union had made to their game the selectors knew line-out specialists would not be required and decided to favour players with ample amounts of speed and acceleration. They also needed players that were prepared to invest some money into the venture and probably accept a lifetime ban from rugby union. In the end no less than 160 of the roughly 200 rugby union players involved in provincial rugby in New Zealand applied to go on the tour, a huge blow to the Rugby Union who had anticipated a low amount of interest. It was from these applications that the final team was selected, with players who had indicated early they were prepared to tour being favoured. At least two rugby union internationals did not tour, "Opai" Asher declined due to a broken ankle and George A. Gillett had to pull out at short notice due to injury. Both were to switch to rugby league later on in their careers. In the end the tour included nine internationals and fourteen provincial players, a large number selected from the Wellington and Auckland teams that had recently been battling over the Ranfurly Shield.
caption: Tour organiser, sportswriter and footballer Albert Henry Baskiville
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