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Nickname: Wallabies
Colors: Gold & Green
Homeground: Suncorp Stadium
Honors: (2) World Cups, (2) Tri-Nations Championships
Anthem: Advance Australia Fair, Waltzing Matilda
Traditions: Waltzing Matilda

World Rugby Shop - Australia Wallaby Rugby Gear

In 1883, the Southern Rugby Football[1] Union (New South Wales) toured New Zealand becoming the first team in the world to tour overseas. A New Zealand team toured in 1884 defeating New South Wales each time in a series of three matches, and winning all nine matches on tour.

The first tour by a British team took place in 1888. A British Isles team toured the Australian colonies and New Zealand, though no test matches were played. The players were drawn mainly from England and the Scottish borders, though there were representatives from all four home unions. This tour was not sanctioned by the Rugby Football Union as the tour was organised by entrepreneurs and thus contravened the strict regulations the union had pertaining to professionalism.

In 1899, the first officially sanctioned British Isles team toured Australia. Four Tests were played between Australia and the British Isles (three in Sydney and one in Brisbane). Although all styled as "Australia", the teams were a representative of the colony in which the match was played. Accordingly the team wore the blue of New South Wales when playing in Sydney, and the maroon of Queensland when playing in Brisbane. The tourists won all their games except the first, which was played at the Sydney Cricket Ground and was won 13-3 by Australia.

Anthem

Advance Australia Fair

This replaced God Save the Queen as Australia's anthem in 1984 but has not proved universally popular. Since 1999, another song, Waltzing Matilda, first written by Banjo Patterson in 1895, has been adopted by the Australian Rugby Union as an unofficial crowd anthem. Lyrics are below.
Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free;
We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history’s page, let every stage
Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.

Beneath our radiant Southern Cross
We’ll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands;
For those who’ve come across the seas
We’ve boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.

Waltzing Matilda

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a Coolibah tree
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled
You'll come a waltzing Matilda with me

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me
And he sang as he watched and waited til his billy boiled
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me

Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tuckerbag
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me
And he sang as he watched and waited til his billy boiled
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me

Up rode the squatter mounted on his thoroughbred
Down came troopers one two three
Whose that jumbuck you've got in the tuckerbag?
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me
And he sang as he watched and waited til his billy boiled
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me

Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong
You'll never catch me alive said he
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.

Orig. Banjo Patterson 1895 (amended 1903)