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4 unusual facts about Sean Fagan


Australian rules football in Tasmania

Sean Fagan claims that early matches played in Tasmania may have been an early form of rugby football, pointing to early mentions of goal posts with cross-bars and offside rules of later Tasmanian clubs.

Len Smith

Sean Fagan casts doubt on this, citing his 1998 interview with Len Smith wherein Smith advised that the game was played between one-half of the touring squad against the other with extra numbers made up by some military personnel on hand in Bombay.

In 1998 Rugby League historian Sean Fagan interviewed Smith who confirmed his suspicion that his Catholicism was the cause of the problem.

Wathaurung Aboriginal Corporation

Sean Fagan has been the Cultural Heritage Coordinator since 2011.


Eric Weissel

Sean Fagan's rl1908.com site quotes a Donald Bradman biography which records that Weissel was playing for a Riverina representative side on 22 November 1926 at the Sydney Cricket Ground against a Southern Districts side in which Bradman was making his SCG debut.

History of rugby union in Australia

Geoffrey Blainey, Leonie Sandercock, Ian Turner and Sean Fagan have all written in support for the theory that the primary influence on the game was rugby football and other other games emanating from English public schools.


see also