This thesis explores schoolboy rugby rivalries, specifically those between Christ's College and Christchurch Boys' High school and between Timaru Boys' High School and Waitaki Boys' High School. These schools are not only "old" schools in the New Zealand context but, importantly, they are boys-only schools and they are boarding schools. For over 100 years they have competed against each other on the rugby field, building a rivalry which is now imbued with notions of tradition and ritual that are part of school identity. This thesis uses interviews, observation, and documentary analysis to unpack these notions of tradition and ritual, and explore what gets done in and through these particular rugby games. It places schoolboy rugby in the context of school history and in the context of the development of rugby in New Zealand. These schoolboy rugby rivalries originated in the colonial development of the English code, complete with its Victorian values of masculine physicality. Such values were transferred to New Zealand's first boys-only schools. The coinciding of rugby with these educational values helped ensure the game would thrive and helps explain the place of the rivalries discussed in this thesis in the contemporary culture of the schools. Rugby reputation not only creates identity for the schools but also for those who play the game. Old Boys carry forward that identity and if they become All Blacks they further reinforce the schools' reputation of rugby prowess. In this way such schools have come to be characterised as the cradle of New Zealand rugby.