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A colourful life ...

OVP

Coach
Messages
11,632
How about we all make this thread great ... about our past Rugby League players ...

They dont have to be great players, just say why you admire them, for whatever reason. Thats a great story in itself.

This is the player i would like for more people to know about.

This is word for word from Wikipedia ....

Raymond Ernest Stehr (24 January 1913 – 2 June 1983) was an Australian rugby league footballer.
Stehr was born in the country New South Wales town of Warialda in 1913. As an eight year-old child, Stehr was diagnosed an incurable cripple after developing blood clots at the base of his spine. He was unable to walk for two years and spent twelve months strapped to a stretcher, completely immobilised with his back encased in a plaster cast. His family moved to Sydney in search of some kind of miracle cure and, following a visit to a Chinese herbalist, the clots began to disappear. Nevertheless, Stehr was told not to contemplate playing contact sport. Stehr defied medical opinion, becoming one of the toughest front rowers rugby league has ever seen.[citation needed]
First recruited as a schoolboy from Randwick Boys High School by the Eastern Suburbs club in 1928, Stehr made his first-grade debut the following season aged just 16 years and 85 days - the youngest ever first-grade rugby league player. He made his first appearance for NSW in 1932 and the following year he was selected to go away with the 1933-34 Kangaroo's. On tour he played in 26 matches, including two Tests.
On his return Stehr joined the Mudgee club in rural NSW as a captain-coach and also captained Country in their annual clash against a Sydney representative side. Midway through the 1934 season he rejoined Easts who were defeated by Western Suburbs in the premiership decider that year. Over the next three seasons, Stehr was a member of the Eastern Suburbs side that lost just one match, winning premierships in each of those years - 1935, 1936 and 1937.
Stehr played in test series against New Zealand and England. In the series against England he set another record when he was sent off in two of the three matches. The uncompramising, no nonsense front rower was then selected for his second Kangaroo tour in 1937-38. WWII brought an end to his test career but in 1940 Stehr was captain of the Easts side that captured it’s 8th premiership. Stehr spent the next few years serving in the military but on his return in 1945 lead Eastern Suburbs to further premiership glory.
Stationed in Darwin during the war, Stehr was named captain of a North Australian representative side in a match against Central Australia
Even after his retirement in 1946, he wasn't far from the game. He was coach at Manly in 1947-48 and Easts’ in 1949; a sports journalist – Stehr wrote a column, for many years, in a Sydney newspaper and worked in television media. He was also club president at Easts. Stehr was named in Eastern Suburbs greatest ever team - an honoury team.
Stehr played in 184 matches for Eastern Suburbs, for many years the most, he represented Australia in 11 tests and played more than 20 matches for his state - New South Wales. During his career, the uncompromising front row forward even had a short stint as a professional Boxer.
Stehr died on the 2 June, 1983 aged 70… his famous sign off in the media was – 'East’s To Win!'.

So who do you admire ? Rugby League has probably had the toughest people in history playing our sport. AFL can only claim the best kickers ... pfffttt... wtf is that sh*t ?

So please tell us about someone else, YOU want us all to know about. After all we are legitimately 100 (or 101) years old this year :)
 

Stagger eel

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
66,302
Ken Thornett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Ken Thornett is a former Australian rugby league player. He represented for the Kangaroos in 12 Tests in 1963-64 and on the 1963-64 Kangaroo Tour.

He was a Fullback with the Parramatta Eels in 1960s. He played 136 games for the club.

Thornett was the leading Australian Rugby League fullback in the early sixties after Barnes and before Johns & Langlands.

Ken played in all six Tests of the 1963 Kangaroo Tour and in ten minor tour games. He made a further six Test appearances and by the end of his representative career in 1964 had played three Tests each against Great Britain and New Zealand, five against France and one against South Africa.

In 1965 he was named NSW Player of the Year.



He was born into a family of legendary footballing brothers. John Thornett was a Wallaby captain who played 37 Rugby Union Tests for Australia over a distinguished 13 year career from 1955. Dick Thornett represented Australia at water polo, rugby league and rugby union. Much of Dick and Ken's club football career was played together at Parramatta and they have the very rare distinction of having played three international rugby league Tests together on the 1963-64 Kangaroo Tour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Thornett
 
Messages
13,811
Allan Langer
(just some quick points)

*Known as Alf, Alfie or The Little General
*Started out at Ipswich Jets
*Was surprisingly picked at no.7 for Queensland in the 1987 Origin series, nearly the whole state doubted him but he tore up the Blues in 87 and more so in 1988.
*The best exponent ever of the Grubber kick
*Started playing with the Broncos in their inaugural season and won Broncos player of the year in 1988.
*Made his test debut for Australia in 88.
*Was made Broncos captain in 1992 at the age of 24.
*Captained the Broncos to their first premiership in 1992 after they finished the season minor premiers by 4 points.
*Captained the Broncos to a world Championship after defeating Wigan in the World Club Challenge.
*Won the Rothmans Medal in 1992 and the Clive Churchill medal
*in 1993 alfie captained the broncos to their 2nd premiership, this time becoming the first team to win the premiership from 5th place and remain the only side to have done it from the last playoff seed.
*Langer captained Queensland for the first time in 1996.
*Langer won the Dally M Medal in 1996 and also won the Rugby League Week player of the year.
*In 1997, Langer captained the Broncos to their 3rd premiership, this time in the Super League competition. Langer will remain forever as the only ever player to captain a side to a super league title.
*The Broncos won their second world championship in 1997 defeating Hunter Mariners in the World Club Challenge Final.
*In 1998 Alfie captained Queensland to a great Origin series win and won Player of the Series on the back of an unbelievable man of the match performance in game 1.
*in 1998, for the final time, Alfie Captained the Broncos to their 4th Premiership in what was arguably one of the top 5 premiership teams of all time.
*Alfie captained The Kangaroos in 1998 in a test series victory, which makes Him and Wayne Bennett the only captain/coach combination ever to win the premiership, origin series and test series in the same year.
*Langer retired mid way through 1999 but the retirement was done rather hastily on the back of some bad form and signed to play in the english super league in 2000 for Warrington.
*in 2001 in a tight origin series that was locked at 1-1, queensland had no viable halfback options, so to the shock of the world Queensland Recalled Langer to play halfback for Queensland from england at the age of 35. The NSW media had a field day with this but Langer being the legend he is played a man of the match performance and scored a try to help Queensland to a dominant game 3 victory.
*Langer returned to the Broncos in 2002 for one final year.
*Langer played origin again in 2002 and had a great series in a drawn series.
*Langer retired in 2002 after a wonderful season which saw the broncos coming within one game of the grand final
*Recognized by me as the greatest player ever lol
 

Ziggy the God

First Grade
Messages
5,240
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Jack Rayner[/FONT][/FONT]

Jack Rayner (born in Lismore, New South Wales, Australia) was an Australian rugby league player who played for South Sydney between 1946 and 1957. He represented New South Wales on eleven occasions and he also played in five test matches for the Australian national representative side.


Club career

Rayner joined the club in 1946 at the suggestion of Eric Lewis, who had played for South Sydney in the 1930s. Lewis spotted Rayner playing rugby league for the army while in Papua New Guinea during WWII. In 1947 Rayner was selected as the club captain due to his leadership skills and his tough performances as a second rower. In 1949 he was appointed the coach of the club as well as captain. He led his club to five premiership wins in the 1950s. He retired at the end of the 1957 season due to a knee injury.


Rayner's fifth grand final win in 1955 stands along with Ken Kearney's five wins by 1960 as the most number of grand final successes by an individual as captain. As captain-coach for all of those wins Rayner was the first man to coach a side to five Grand Final victories, a record subsequently matched by Ken Kearney and Jack Gibson and beaten in 2006 by Wayne Bennett.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Rayner



[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Interviewed by Sean Fagan of RL1908.com: (great read)[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]http://www.rl1908.com/Interviews/rayner.htm[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]​
 
Messages
10,970
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dally_Messenger

Herbert Henry "Dally" Messenger (born April 12, 1883 in Balmain, New South Wales, died November 24, 1959) was an Australian rugby league footballer, recognised as one of that game's greatest ever players. Messenger, or ‘The Master’ as he was dubbed, represented his country in both rugby football codes, playing 2 rugby union tests and 7 rugby league tests. He was also offered contracts by English soccer clubs, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, but refused them on the principle that soccer was decadent.
Not a tall man, Messenger stood around 172cm (5ft 7') but was a powerful runner of the ball and solid defender. According to his peers the centre's greatest attributes were his unpredictability and coordination coupled with a freakish ability to kick goals from almost any part of the ground. He was a teetotaller and non smoker during his career and other than breakfast, Messenger would rarely eat before a match.


Dally Messenger: Rugby's First Superstar

Sean Fagan (co-author of "The Master" with Dally Messenger III)


This article is based on the book about Dally Messenger:
The Master.
The impact of "Dally" Messenger on Australia's winter football landscape remains with us today.

The son of a boat builder and professional sculler, and a grandson of a man who had been barge-master to Queen Victoria on the Thames in England, Herbert Henry Messenger was bestowed the nickname of "Dally" early in life by his father.

The young Messenger's portly figure apparently reminded all of NSW colonial parliamentarian, William Dalley (the "e"
disappearing by the time Messenger came
to prominence as a footballer).

Born in Sydney's working-class suburb of Balmain in 1883, Messenger moved with his family to Double Bay when he was 18 months old. There his father erected a boat shed and family home. His father built boats for the local rowing and sailing clubs, and was part of internationally famous sculler Bill Beach's support team.

Messenger played rugby union for the Double Bay Primary School, and also Australian football while living in Melbourne for a time. He left school at the age of fifteen, working alongside his father and older brothers as an apprentice boat builder. He continued playing rugby union in local semi-formal "pick-up" matches, however, rowing and sailing took his interest when it came to serious competitive sport.

Late in the 1905 football season, Messenger finally entered the first grade rugby union scene (with Eastern Suburbs). A year later, at the age of twenty-three, his assent to the top echelon of rugby union was complete with his selection in the NSW team for matches against Queensland in Brisbane.

In the return contests in Sydney, playing as a centre three-quarter, he quickly became a favourite with the public for his bright, creative, individual and "crowd pleasing" style of play, and propensity to land long-range place-kick and drop goals.

He was not without critics though, with more than a few Sydney newspaper journalists and NSWRU officials chastising him for not playing the team game, and not sticking to his assigned position in the backline.

In 1907 Messenger played for NSW against Queensland and New Zealand. In the second NSW v. New Zealand contest of the winter, he was man-of-the-match in the home team's 14-0 defeat of the All Blacks. It had been a decade since NSW had last tasted victory over New Zealand, and the first time they had kept the New Zealanders scoreless.

The most memorable feat of the day, was a spectacular leap over the heads of New Zealand defenders to score a dramatic try - a moment that lived in the collective memory of Sydneysiders for generations. It was not the only time in his Union and League careers though that he would produce something of such magnitude.

Messenger missed the first Test against New Zealand due to injury, but played in the final two Tests of the series. Two days after the final Test, amidst ever-growing rumours, he announced that he was joining rugby league.

The story of his defection to the thirteen man code has taken on legendary status in both rugby codes.

Messenger's involvement with the formation of rugby league extends back months before he quit rugby union. Like many of his contemporaries, he argued that the NSWRU should have been far more liberal when it came to sharing the vast profits it was making from gate-takings at the time.

The day after the final Test match, the League's founder, James J. Giltinan, visited the Messenger family boatshed at Double Bay. There, Messenger and Giltinan met with Messenger's mother. Ultimately, Giltinan agreed to pay Messenger £50 to join rugby league, and, effectively, buy him his place in the "All Golds" tour team. The money was given directly to Messenger's mother for safe-keeping.

The significance of the loss of Messenger to Australian rugby union is difficult to quantify. There was no hue and cry from the NSWRU or rugby supporters amongst the newspapers, lamenting Messenger's defection.

It is naive to suggest that without Messenger rugby league would have failed, and that had it disappeared, rugby union would have prevailed as the leading winter sport. A predominantly working class city, a professional football code (either Australian football or soccer) would have arisen in Sydney before too long and usurped amateur rugby union.

Messenger became the foundation rock upon which rugby league built itself in Australia. His exploits have become legend, and, remarkably, many can now be confirmed thanks to match reports in newspapers of the time.

He continued playing rugby league from late 1907 until retiring at the end of the 1913 season. In that time he played for the NSW "Blues", Queensland "Maroons", Australia, New Zealand, Australasia, and twice toured England and Wales (with the "All Golds" & the first Kangaroos). He also captained his club side, Eastern Suburbs, to premierships in 1911, 1912 and 1913.

Messenger has been inducted in the ARL Hall of Fame, and the League's "Dally M Awards" are named in his honour.


This article is based on the book about Dally Messenger:
The Master.
After retirement Messenger spent much of his time as a sort of ambassador for rugby league, visiting cities and towns across NSW and Queensland where he trained junior teams, kicked-off matches and attended presentation evenings.

Messenger also worked various jobs, ranging from boat building, boat master, publican, and for a time ran a banana plantation in Buderim in Queensland.

Unlike others who have subsequently crossed the rugby divide, Messenger refused throughout his life to denounce his former code. He was always happy to meet and talk to anyone about his Union or League days.

Messenger passed away in August 1959, he was 76 years old.

(For more details visit: "The Master" )

Rugby History Article © Sean Fagan


http://www.colonialrugby.com.au/Messenger.htm


without Messenger RL would not have taken off, and wed be AFL fans now.
 
Messages
10,970
this story about clive churchill is amazing. a great incident in the history of RL :

http://www.angelfire.com/mt/hort/game10.html


Central to their plight was an injury to legendary fullback Clive Churchill. He had sustained a broken arm in the 6th minute of play, but rather than leave the side down, he stayed on, wrapping an exercise book around the break to act as a splint, and taking advantage of pain killing injections.
Souths never gave in. Chocka Cowie levelled the scores late in the match with a try wide out. However, still 4 points adrift of the top 4, a draw would have ended the season. Churchill pleaded with captain Jack Rayner to be allowed to take the sideline conversion. With his broken arm hanging limply by his side, Churchill's attempt was never going to be a great one. The kick was terrible, but still, miraculously, managed to sneak over to give Souths a 9-7 win, and keep their final hopes alive.
 
Messages
10,970
they won 11 straight and were a champion team. Never beforem never again :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_Provan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Kearney


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg_Gasnier


raper, langlands.

http://www.showroom.com.au/dragons/dragonshistory/history_stgeorge4b.htm

that team revolutionised the world of RL with their off field training methods. they were so good that the rules of the game were changed to stop them. they got rid of unlimited tackle football because other teams couldnt compete with the battering the saints forwards dished out, and they brought in cronulla to take away some of their juniors.

both those changes came in the 1967 season, little wonder saints run of 11 stopped that year to the Cantebury Bulldogs, captained by ex saints player Kevin Ryan

the story ive read is even canterbury fans were upset when people reazlied that saints werent going to be making the GF and that the winning run was over
 

innsaneink

Referee
Messages
29,385
Keith 'Yappy' Holman

holman-fame.jpg

Wests 13 seasons 49-61, 203 FG games, one of only two players to play 200+ (Raudonikis 201)

NSW [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]-24 games (1950-58)

[/FONT] Australia- 32 tests

Coached Magpies first grade 1977 winning Amco Cup

Reffereed 1971 1st grade GF, 1972 test series

RL Hall of fame

Magpies team of century

Wests Tigers team of the century

Oversaw jnr development in PNG

Only player to have junior club named in his honour, Holman Jnrs.
 

STSAE

Juniors
Messages
2,170
Arthur Henry Beetson OAM (born 22 January, 1945 in Roma, Queensland) is an Australian former rugby league player for Queensland and Australia from 1964 to 1981. His position was at prop. Beetson became the first Aborigine to captain his country in any sport and is frequently cited as the best post-war forward in Australian rugby league history.
Beetson's career began with Redcliffe in the Brisbane Rugby League competition between 1964 and 1965. He then moved to Sydney to play in the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership with the Balmain Tigers from 1966 to 1970, and later joined the Eastern Suburbs club from 1972 to 1978, where he captained the side to the 1974 and '75 premierships. This Easts team would go down as one of the greatest club sides in rugby league history. During this period Beetson also played with distinction for Australia and in 1974 he was named as Rugby League Week's player of the year.
He possessed great strength and toughness, a surprising turn of speed for a big man and was unequalled as a ball player. His skill as a footballer was matched only by his skill as an eater, earning nicknames such as 'Meat Pie Artie'. He is known and immortalised by his performance of eating 11 hot dogs before a gala dinner for the Australian team in 1973.
His big frame, pure speed and brilliant ball skills won countless games for all his teams. His off-loading and attacking workrate broke the mould for front rowers and changed the way they played the game.
After two years with Parramatta in 1979 and 1980, he returned to Queensland for one final year with his old Redcliffe team in 1981.
Beetson achieved further immortality as captain of Queensland in the inaugural State of Origin game, won 20-10 by Queensland on 8 July 1980. In 1987 he received the Medal of the Order of Australia "in recognition of service to the sport of Rugby League".
Arthur Beetson's coaching career is also extensive, spanning the 1970s, 80s and 90s. He coached the Eastern Suburbs Roosters, the Cronulla Sharks and the Queensland side for whom he is currently a selector.
Beetson is often regarded as Australia's best ever forward, and in 2000 he was awarded the Australian Sports Medal, then in 2001 the Centenary Medal "for service to Australian society through the sport of rugby league". He was inducted into the Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame in 2003. In May 2004 his book, Big Artie: The Autobiography was published. Also that year he became the seventh selected post-war “Immortal” of the Australian game with Churchill, Raper, Gasnier, Fulton, Langlands and Wally Lewis.

Legend in his own time.

:lol: :lol:
 

_Johnsy

Referee
Messages
28,811
MARK "MIGHTY ATOM" SHULMAN
My first favourite player for the drags

Dubbed the 'Mighty Atom', halfback Mark Shulman joined Saints in 1971 beginning his career in third grade. The smallest man in rugby league, Shulman stood at just 5 foot 2 inches (157cm) and weighed in at just 10 stone (63Kg). The 18-year-old made four first grade appearances for Saints in 1971 including a sparkling second half against Souths at the SCG.
Shulman was set to replace the patient Ross Strudwick who had to battle the evergreen Billy Smith (who had broken an arm in early 1971) for the halfback spot.

1977_shulman_1.jpg
 
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