ABSTRACT
The sport of rugby league can trace its origins to the enthusiasm for rugby football among working class populations of northern England and northeastern Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the century and half that have followed little has changed, and despite scattered pockets of global popularity, comparatively simple game rules and gallant pioneering expansion attempts, rugby league has advanced little during globalisation as compared to fellow football codes. This chapter provides an overview of the history of rugby league, highlighting both the many successes and failures of the sport. The chapter attempts to follow a chronological progression, oscillating between the northern and southern hemisphere context where appropriate.
