FEBRUARY 1948
‘Broken hearted’ French Rugby League President, Paul Barriere confirmed his Federation had abandoned plans to tour Australia and New Zealand later in the year.
After long discussions with other officials in Paris, Barriere said it would not be possible to undertake the historic tour, because ‘the difficulties were immense’.
The French were worried about the schedule being too ‘hectic’, and also were reluctant to tour without financial guarantees. But the main reason was the devaluation of the Franc, which meant the cost of bringing the team out by air, more than doubled. (The French Government devalued its currency, hoping it would make exports more affordable).
Rugby League in France had done well to return to a position of strength, after the Nazi based Vichy Government banned the sport during World War II, at the request of rugby union officials. The Vichy Government confiscated all rugby league’s finances and property.
Illicit wartime games of league were played when the opportunity arose.
“But most Treizistes (defenders of the 13 man code) had other things on their mind between 1941 and 1945,” wrote Geoffrey Moorhouse in “A People’s Game’ (The History of Rugby League). “Many of them were in the Maquis (Resistance), including young industrialist, Paul Barriere (Legion d’honneur for his work with the Resistance), one of the men who would put the game back on its feet later, in spite of its Paris offices being wrecked, with all the records destroyed.”
Some of the French stars, in the immediate Post-War years, were Gaston Comes (Perpignan), Renee Duffort (Lyon), Raymond Contrastin (Bordeaux) and the incomparable Puig Aubert (Carcassonne), who played 46 Tests between 1946 and 1956.
Before the cancellation of the 1948 tour, The Courier-Mail’s L H Kearney wrote that France played a spectacular brand of football.
“The players’ uncanny speed and unorthodoxy in the loose, and in back-line attacks, are the consequences of impulses, born in the blood,” Kearney wrote. (He’d probably be called a racist now). “Frenchmen do not like the tight, bullocking forward type of play, often witnessed in the Tests between Australia and Britain. They don’t breed the Eddie Brosnan type of forward. Rather, they bank their whole idea of the game on combination and footwork.”
The Courier-Mail’s other league writer, Jack Reardon, who played in France as a member of the 1937-38 Kangaroo touring side, said the French had proven they deserved to awarded a full scale Southern Hemisphere tour.
“France play rugby league as I’m sure the people who framed the rules, intended it to be played, and they would have been tremendously popular with Australian crowds,” Reardon wrote.
Those fans had to wait until 1951 for the French to tour, and what a tour it proved to be, with France winning the Test series 2-1 and drawing huge crowds wherever they went.
In other news from February, 1948: Bowen Rugby League Club in North Queensland announced it had signed Nev Ryrie, from Brisbane premiers, Easts, as captain-coach. Ryrie also had fielded a lucrative offer from Longreach, in Western Queensland.
For the third consecutive season, and for the fourth time since 1941, the Queensland Police applied to play in the Brisbane First Grade competition.
Police Club official, Merv Callaghan boasted the police could field a particularly strong side, being able to call on a host of players from established Brisbane clubs. Two notable examples were representative forwards, Eddie Brosnan and Jack Rooney, from Brothers.
Brothers announced they had signed Clive Cherry, a star fullback for the club in the 1946 season. The return of Cherry (from injury) was timely, given 1947 fullback, Jack Seymour had moved to Mt Isa, for work reasons. Brothers’ young halfback, Bobby Bax, was receiving one-on-one coaching from former State half, Les Ridgewell.
Brothers held their annual general meeting at the Aquinas Library, 270 Queen Street, with Dr Clive Uhr, elected president. A product of Gatton High, Dr Uhr was a major in the Australian Army in World War II, and tended to his fellow soldiers in the infamous Changi Prisoner of War camp.
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Looking at the 1946 French side, they could have cut a half price arrangement with a shipping firm to shovel coal on passage to Australia. Industrial age working men at their finest.
Steve,dad didn’t make the test team in 51 but he did play against france for nsw they had a draw.Graham roberts.