25 July 2025
Dear Editor,
All those wonderful British and Irish rugby players, officials, and visitors to Australia for the British & Irish Lions versus the Aussie Wallabies can proudly — win or lose! — puff their chests out for playing the game of Rugby that led to Aussie Rules Footy!
The Aborigines did not invent Australian Rules Football, just as they did not, or only partially, gift dot- painting, smoking and welcome ceremonies to modern-day Australia; the white fella of many origins is largely responsible for all the preceding.
Now all that may be as painful for many history revisionists as the “Oh! My possum!!” grip, just as I experienced when playing in the back pocket for the Collingwood Fourths against very nippy, bush- and street-wise Aboriginal rovers some 65 years ago!
Yours,
Howard Hutchins
Victoria, Australia