In Sydney, Rugby it was said was the province of the more education, the lawyers and accountants and those of similar ilk.
Rugby League however was the province of the working people and this was reflected in the spit of the codes with the 'blue bloods' continued on with Rugby. In England the split came in 1895 and in Australia in 1907.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_league
Australian Rules in Victoria however never had this distinction between the better off and the rest of us, neither was this distinction seen in Western Australia or South Australia, but there were other differences.
Hockey is a passionate Australian sport with huge numbers of young people playing it. Traditionally in South Australia it was a private school sport, whereas in Western Australia with the influx of Anglo-Indians after WWII, hockey, 'everyone' played it.
England too had this distinction, in that hockey was a sport played by the upper crust schools, whereas soccer was the game of the masses.
So who plays what sports and does this 'better well' distinction play out in sports across the board? There are prior questions to ask.
First, some sports demand a higher level of financial input than others. Rowing sports of all classes requires a highly specialised piece of equipment. These don't come cheap. Talking to young Australian Institute of Sport rowing ranks it was obvious these young people were not deprived of their opportunity at this level.
Yachting is in the same category. To even get into the range of class required to qualify for higher levels such as the Admirals Cup, the Sydney to Hobart, the America's Cup, Olympic level, one needs to have been sailing for many years and this is not a sport for those without a wallet of means.
Polo is another of those sporting arenas that require substantial resources. Owning a polo pony requires some 'where-with-all' and most young people do not have access to these kinds of historical hand-me-downs and only a tiny fraction of the population live on farms.
Even the sport of BMX requires a bike and some kind of a ute (be it a dual cab or some other kind of larger vehicle) to transport the equipment. So, clearly, some sports require a certain amount of private resources.
Second, there are family traditions. Netball and hockey are two such sports where youngsters are born into 'one-eyed' families for their particular sport. It would be a family sacrilege for a youngster to engage in another area of sporting endeavour. These families talk, breathe, sleep, dream their sport and its kitchen table, lounge room and bed time banter.
Third, high schools are playing a role in giving students as wide as possible range of sport experiences. From this, some youngsters see that they have a proclivity to a sport and some pursue it in a tunnel vision and often succeed at high level.
I was recently told about a young lass who was a bit of a hand full at home, until she discovered she was rather good on the trampoline and liked the attention. It changed her whole demeanour toward her family relationships, friends and schooling.
Therefore the answer to the question, Who plays what sports?, is not as simple as we might have first imagined. The answers are as diverse as are sports.