takeover bid by the rugby league that would effectively supplant Australian Football as Australia's national football code. It was also reported that the Australian national team to tour New Zealand would be playing the new National Rugby League code. By the time that the proposed takeover was no longer being reported as a "sure thing" the confusion caused had already been done to the confidence of the code locally, already on hold everywhere but Auckland due to the war. The new focus was on sending a Rugby league team to compete against the National League professionals from Australia with matches to be played in Sydney and Brisbane in June 1915. The belief that Australian rules in Australia was dying was fueled by reports that the replacement of what was Australian Rules would be played as a curtain-raiser to the big match. Adding to the view that the Australian code would not survive the war, the South Australian Football League's ceasing of its competition in 1916 was also widely reported. With the return of the code in Australia and the failure of the NZ league tour, some had regretted putting the focus on sending a League team to tour Australia with most commentators generally agreeing that despite the hype from Sydney, that Union offered a superior spectacle to League. Expulsion of New Zealand: 1914 Tensions between the Australian delegates and New Zealand became acrimonious and in 1914 after a lengthy debate and 89 page report on the state of the game and the use of propaganda funds the council again moved to exclude New Zealand. The time it was unanimously passed by the council and New Zealand was permanently expelled. The council removed the reference to Australasia. Post-war efforts Nevertheless, some efforts were made to rekindle interest in the code during these years. For instance, in 1930 a call was put out through The Sporting Globe for Australians in New Zealand to restart the sport there. An opinion piece in The Argus in Melbourne's 1935 also proposed that the Australian Football Council might be remiss not to put some effort into promoting the game there. In 1961, the Melbourne Football Club toured New Zealand during its off season, becoming the first VFL/AFL club to do so. In 1965 Sydney club Western Suburbs Magpies AFC toured New Zealand an played an exhibition match in Auckland which attracted more than 700 spectators, prompting