KANGAROOS PROUD HISTORY

Continuing Steve Ricketts’ look at the history of our national rugby league side. At the request of Australian coach, Mal Meninga, Ricketts provided 14 chapters on the history of the Kangaroos, for a booklet to present to the players as they entered camp for the 2024 Pacific Cup.

KANGAROOS PROUD HISTORY
CHAPTER 3

1910-1920
THE SECOND KANGAROOS

After the success of the English side’s tour of Australia in 1910, it was decided the Kangaroos needed to reciprocate as quickly as possible. Captained by ‘the boy from the bush’, Chris McKivat, the Kangaroos won the 1911 Test series in England, a feat that was not replicated for another 50 years. McKivat, who played for Glebe in Sydney, came from Cumnock in Central NSW, and was one of the 25 Wallabies to defect to League in 1909. As captain of the Wallabies, he had taken that team to Olympic Gold Medal success in London.

The 1911-12 Kangaroos won 31 of 36 games on tour. McKivat, who played 31 games and scored 10 tries, told the English media the Kangaroos had won because the locals did not possess the pace of the ‘Colonials’. The Test matches were played in Newcastle, Edinburgh and Birmingham. On McKivat’s retirement as a player in 1914, he became the first of rugby league’s high-profile, non-playing coaches. He went on to coach North Sydney in 1921-22, the only years the foundation club won premierships.

England toured Australia in 1914 and this time the Kangaroos’ skipper was Sid Deane, who played in the centres alongside Dally Messenger on the first Kangaroo tour. Deane remained in England after that tour and played for Oldham, captaining the club to championship finals in 1910 and 1911. While at Oldham he played for a ‘Colonials’ representative team against England.

Deane returned to Australia in 1912 and signed with North Sydney, and, after leading NSW to a win over the touring England side in 1914, was named captain for the Test series. Australia lost the First Test 23-5 at the Sydney Showgrounds. This game saw the debut in the second row for Australia of future Immortal, Frank Burge from the Glebe club. Burge was a first grader at 16, and was a strong chance of being chosen for the 1911-12 Kangaroo tour in his first season, but selectors decided he was too young.

Incredibly the Second Test in 1914 was played just two days later at the SCG, and this time the Kangaroos were victorious 12-7. It was the first Rugby League Test played at the SCG, and the Australian team was an all-NSW selection. Wally Messenger, the younger brother of Dally, was Dean’s centre partner.

There was a five day break ahead of the Third Test, which also was played at the SCG, meaning Queensland did not host a Test in the series.

Rorke’s Drift, the name of a legendary siege by the Zulus of an English encampment in South Africa, was attached to the 1914 decider. Just as the vastly outnumbered British soldiers had fought off the Zulu warriors, the English league players emerged victorious (14-6) despite being down to 10 men, against 13 fit men. Dean and Messenger scored Australia’s tries.

Noted English rugby league historian, Geoffrey Moorehouse described it as “The most celebrated match in all rugby league history.” Some Australians would disagree.

A number of the ‘English’ players were in fact Welsh, and one of them,  Willie Davies was one of two try scorers for the tourists. (England weren’t known as ‘Great Britain’ until some time later). Davies came through the Aberavon club and represented Wales in rugby before switching codes with Leeds. After World War 1 there was also a cessation (albeit brief) of hostilities between the rugby codes, and in 1918 Davies played for a Welsh union selection against New Zealand Armed Forces side in Swansea. Davies laid on the winning try for Jim Bacon from Crosskeys in South Wales. Bacon switched to league with Leeds in 1919 and toured Australia with the English league side in 1920 and ’24.

Just a few days after the 1914 Lions’ outfit arrived home, England declared war on Germany. Australia followed suit the next day.

WORLD WAR 1

Rugby Union suspended official competitions during the War years, 1914-18, but rugby league continued, in the process raising money for the war effort and providing entertainment, in tough times. At least 10 high profile rugby league players or officials died in action on the battlefields of Europe.

In Brisbane, the official rugby union competition did not recommence until 1929. In the period 1920 to 1929, the Universities and private schools in Queensland all played rugby league, with Sydney University having to switch to the 13-man code for a match against its Queensland rivals.

International rugby league resumed in 1919 with the Kangaroos touring New Zealand for the first time. Pint sized halfback, Arthur ‘Pony’ Halloway was given the honour of captaining the side. It was his fourth overseas tour, having made the first two Kangaroo tours to Britain and also touring New Zealand with NSW in 1912. The Sydney born halfback was as tough as they come. He severed a finger at work one Saturday morning and played club football that afternoon.

Australian winger, Harold Horder from the South Sydney club, was the tour sensation, scoring nine tries in the Test series. The Kangaroos travelled across the Tasman on a rat-infested cargo ship (the ‘Essex’) and several players came down with blood poisoning. They played the First Test the day after disembarking in Wellington, scoring a record 10 tries in a 44-21 victory.

The Kiwis responded with a 26-10 win in the return Test in Christchurch. Australia won the Third Test 34-23 in Auckland and this proved to be Halloway’s last Test, as he succumbed to a leg injury, with five eighth, Rick Johnston taking over. Johnston, who had left school aged 13 to begin a boilermaker’s apprenticeship, was captain of Sydney club, Newtown when chosen to tour New Zealand. Halloway did not recover in time for the Fourth Test, so Johnston retained the captaincy and led the Kangaroos to a magnificent 32-2 win, with Horder scoring three tries.

In 1921 Halloway moved to Ipswich in a captain-coach role, and played one match for Queensland. He coached Eastern Suburbs to four Sydney premierships – three in a row in the 1930s, and then again in 1945.

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