run with the ball. By the early 1870s, it had become common practice that a player running with the ball should drop it upon being held by an opponent; this was enshrined in the rules by 1876, with Rule 8 including the stipulation "in the event of a player with the ball in hand trying to pass an adversary, and being held by him, he must at once drop the ball," with a free kick to be paid for a breach of the rule. Application of the law in the early years and throughout the first half of the 20th century would appear extremely stringent to a spectator familiar with the modern application of the rule. In general, the tackler needed to do little more than grip an opponent by the guernsey with one hand, not necessarily even retarding his progress, to earn a free kick. The full body tackle which would be seen in modern playing style was not necessary, and was very uncommonly seen because executing one would almost always result in conceding a holding the man free kick – that rule was also applied very stringently at the time, so a full body tackle would almost always linger for some time after the player had dropped the ball, and therefore would always be penalised. Until even the 1950s, full body tackling was thought of by the football-going public as a "rugby tackle": and while it was legal within the rules, it was so scarcely seen that many thought it to be illegal. Standardised laws One of the early difficulties encountered by the Australasian Football Council, which owned and administered the laws of the game from 1906 onwards, was in establishing a consistent interpretation the holding the ball rule between the different states. Sportswriters noted a particularly wide disparity between the interpretations of the rule in South Australia and Victoria: in South Australia, the rule was applied extremely stringently, with a defending player needing to do little more than touch a player running with the ball to force him to drop it, making it almost impossible for a player to run with the ball in the vicinity of opponents; but that in Victoria, a more significant hold or tackle was required to earn a free kick, resulting in players more willing to run through packs of opponents. These wide differences often led to difficulties in interstate matches. Particularly