work out a game of our own." More recent historiography has shown that while Harrison played a pivotal role over a long period, he did not co-write the first rules in 1859, nor did he play in the 1858 games. With this correction, a number of historians elevated Wills to a position of pre-eminence, variously calling him the game's founder, father or inventor. Blainey said of Wills: "It is far too much to say that he founded the game, but it would be too little to say that he was simply one among many founders." It is often said that, due to his suicide, Wills was written out of the game's history, or at the very least downplayed as an important figure. De Moore rejects this view, noting that the contributions of Hammersley, Smith, Thompson and other pioneers, rather than those of Wills, were generally overlooked. In her analysis of early football, Hibbins concludes that Thompson's journalistic ability as a promoter of the game "probably" makes him the most significant pioneer, and that the importance of Wills' role has been overemphasised. Echoing Hibbins' arguments, Roy Hay writes that Wills, while a "catalyst" for football, was "much more interested in playing and performing than in organising". British historian Tony Collins even compared Wills to William Webb Ellis and Abner Doubleday, the apocryphal inventors of rugby and baseball, respectively. In response to Collins' suggestion that Wills "quickly faded from the footballing scene", journalist James Coventry highlighted his seventeen-year playing career (by far the longest of the pioneers), the influence he wielded as captain-coach of various clubs for much of that time, and his administrative work. He concludes that Collins and other scholars have "perversely" devalued Wills' real contributions "in their rush to discredit [the Marngrook theory]". See also Cultural depictions of Tom Wills List of Australian rules footballers and cricketers List of cricketers called for throwing in top-class cricket matches in Australia List of Victoria first-class cricketers Tom Wills Medal Footnotesa. Wills' birthplace is a matter of some conjecture as there is a lack of reliable archival information on the subject, and the precise whereabouts of his parents are difficult to pinpoint during the period around 1835. Molonglo is given as his birthplace in an 1869 biographical piece in which the author states that Wills had given him notes on his life. A common alternative is Parramatta in modern-day Sydney. When Victorians