When you think about Australia's biggest cross-border rivalries, the feud between South Australia and Victoria often comes to mind.

Which state makes the best beer? Which has the most liveable city? Why did Victoria steal the Grand Prix?

Numerous questions were submitted to the ABC's Curious Adelaide team surrounding the rivalry and while there are many opinions around it, we've decided to delve into one contributing factor — Aussie Rules football.

Australian Rules a key factor

One historian from Adelaide believes the rivalry stemmed from the adoption of the game.

"It begins in the early stages of the game," sports historian Dr Bernard Whimpress said.

"We adopted what was originally called Victorian Rules, before it was known as Australian Rules.

"In fact, the New South Wales people had been playing the game early on against the Victorians, but they regarded the Victorians as tyrants, so they basically chucked it and imported rugby.

"Here [in South Australia] we adopted the rules and our early competition — it was sort of a situation where we liked to measure our improvement by our performances against the Victorians.

"It was a bit like the way we tried to measure our performances in cricket against England."

Dr Bernard Whimpress believes South Australians have always "punched above their weight" in sport. ( ABC News: Camron Slessor )

Victoria dominated early, but SA improved

Although South Australia has always had plenty of talent on the football field, results didn't come easy in the early days of the game.

"In our early games in the 19th century we were generally thrashed by the Victorians, but if we made odd improvements, that was something," Dr Whimpress said.

"The other thing that we did in those times was inter-colonial club games of football.

"What this meant [was] that teams like Norwood or Port Adelaide, this would happen every year, all the main sides and some Victorian sides too, would take a week or 10 days off during the season and go and tour interstate.

"Our performances were often measured playing these games as well and our club sides did quite well against Victorian clubs.

"For example, in 1888, Norwood played an end of season, what they called a Championship of Australia game against South Melbourne at the Kensington Oval and beat them in three successive matches — and they were the Victorian premiers."

More success followed for South Australia into the 1900s.

Fos Williams a driver for rivalry

Foster Neil 'Fos' Williams was a leading Australian Rules footballer who played for and coached the Port Adelaide and West Adelaide footballs clubs.

Dr Whimpress believes the passion that Fos Williams had for interstate games added a lot to the rivalry. ( SANFL )

He also coached South Adelaide in the SANFL, played 34 interstate games for South Australia as well as coached the side in 45 games.

Dr Whimpress said Williams "added a lot" to the rivalry with Victoria, simply because of his passion for South Australian success.

"The real thing that leads up to this [rivalry] is probably associated with a very famous figure in South Australian football in Fos Williams," he said.

"He coached Port for a very long time and had all this success in the [1950s] with a very hard team who won six premierships in a row.

"Williams also played an enormous number of state games and was captain and captain-coach.

"After he retired in 1958, he was mainly the coach of the state team over the next few years and he was always grilling the side.

"The performance of the state side meant a lot to him."

Absence from the Australian Football Hall of Fame

Dr Whimpress said he also believed there have been some "scandalous" omissions in the Australian Football Hall of Fame for South Australian players — which is often thought to be heavily biased towards Victorian players.

He worked at the SANFL from 1979 to 1983 and was a big influence in naming the South Australian players to be nominated for the awards.

Dr Bernard Whimpress has written extensively on South Australian footballer Tom Leahy, who he said remains a "scandalous omission" from the AFL Hall of Fame. ( ABC News: Camron Slessor )

"In 1996 I made the selections on behalf of the SANFL, there was a committee but basically I made all the selections and they agreed to them," he said.

"There's one fellow who was nominated on the original list and is still not in the Australian Football Hall of Fame, he's a fellow called Tom Leahy.

"He was a ruckman, his playing career was from 1903 to about 1921 — he played a lot of state games.

"They used to have a lot of these events called interstate carnivals which would be played every three years.

"He was in [the team] in 1908, 1911, 1914 and another one in 1921, so he played in all of those carnivals.

"The Victorians, even in their papers, they regarded him as the best ruckman in Australia in that early first 25 years."

Dr Whimpress said while he believed many of those who were already in the Australian Football Hall of Fame deserved to be there, there were some from South Australia who had been overlooked.

"Interestingly, Ken Farmer, the famous goal kicker, he was an original nomination, and a third nomination, Neil Kerley, these were the ones who didn't get up in 1996.

"They were scandalous omissions from that first selection that was made in 1996 — for the centenary in 1997.

"Farmer has now been added and Kerley has been added, but Leahy has still never been.

"Some of the selections that were made were just blokes who happened to be their contemporaries, whereas there were some good ones here [in SA] who missed out.

"Leahy remains a scandalous omission."

State of Origin games were 'great contests'

State of Origin is no longer a part of Aussie Rules football, but it had a lot of success when introduced in 1977.

In fact in 1989, a crowd of more than 90,000 people attended a game between South Australia and Victoria at the MCG.

Dr Whimpress said the State of Origin era was the pinnacle of the cross-border rivalry and he was still bitter that the games had been wiped out.

"When we first had the State of Origin matches, over the next few years, we actually led the Victorians 8-6 or something like that," he said.

"These were great contests and then they throw it over when they formed the AFL which is a ridiculous thing because with rugby league, the highlight of their season is the State of Origin and they were second off the mark with it."

South Australia and Victoria clashed in some close and heated contests in the State of Origin. ( Port Adelaide Football Club. )

While the rivalry does still remain between South Australia and Victoria these days, Dr Whimpress said he didn't think it was as prominent as it used to be.

"I don't think our interstate passions are that great but they do come out and are still expressed through sport," he said.

"I think those that were there with the State of Origin, for those who remember it, that made for some big rivalries."