How rugby league missed out on the best two centres in the world
They were the ones who got away. In the fourth part of his series on 100 years of Queensland primary school rugby league, MIKE COLMAN reveals how some of the game’s best players ended up as Wallabies instead of Maroons.
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- Part One: Metropolitan North and Peninsula
- Part Two: Metropolitan East and Capricornia
- Part Three: South West and Wide Bay
They are the ones that got away – the promising Queensland primary school rugby league players who ended up representing the Wallabies instead of the Maroons or Kangaroos.
As the Queensland Primary School Rugby league celebrates it centenary this week by announcing 14 regional teams of the century many of the names will be better known for their feats at Ballymore, Twickenham or Carisbrook than at Lang Park or Leichhardt Oval.
Tim Horan and Jason Little, who were regarded as the world’s best rugby union centre combination in the 1990s, actually first played alongside each other for Darling Downs at the 1982 Queensland Primary Schools Rugby League championships in Bundaberg.
Both have been selected in the Darling Downs team of the century, one of two sides announced today. Fellow Wallaby Drew Mitchell has been named today in the Sunshine Coast team.
“The first football I ever played was rugby league for East Toowoomba State School and Toowoomba All Whites,” Horan recalled. “When I started high school at Downlands I wanted to keep playing league for the All Whites with my friends but my dad (former deputy premier Mike Horan who played league for Brisbane Easts and Parramatta) told me, ‘no, you’re going to a rugby union school now. You’ll make new friends’.
“It was the same with Jason who went to Toowoomba Grammar but we both loved rugby league and it was a very good grounding for rugby union.
“Things have changed a bit now but back then you’d find that players who went from league to union would go well because in rugby league they taught us how to tackle.
“The junior league coaches would show you the right technique for front-on tackling whereas with union it was more about running with the ball.”
The 14 regional sides, from which the overall Team of the Century will be selected and announced on Sunday, contain eight other Wallabies in addition to Horan, Little and Mitchell. Elton Flately and James O’Connor (South Coast) and Ben Tune and Sean McMahon (Metropolitan North), and Daniel Heenan (Metropolitan West) went straight from junior rugby league to rugby union. Berrick Barnes (Wide Bay), who played 51 Tests, signed with rugby after nine games for the Brisbane Broncos and Wendell Sailor (Northern) and Mat Rogers (South Coast) both represented the Wallabies after long and successful rugby league careers.
Current 33-Test Wallaby Matt Toomua, who represented Springwood Road State School in 2002, narrowly missed selection in the Metropolitan East team of the century.
While there is little doubt that all the juniors who sidestepped rugby league and represented the Wallabies could have made it big in the NRL and beyond, there is one who a very good judge believes could have been better than all the rest.
In an interview in 2000, the Brisbane Broncos peerless talent scout Cyril Connell – the man who first spotted and signed Darren Lockyer, Shane Webcke, Petero Civoniceva, Karmichael Hunt and Wendell Sailor among others, was asked to name the junior player who had most impressed him on first sight, and the best youngster who had slipped through his fingers.
The most obvious superstar?
“Ben Tune,” he said. “I went to watch him play rugby union for his school. The first half he didn’t touch the ball once. Then in the second half he got the ball and you could tell, just like that. It took about a second.’’
And the one that got away?
``Same boy. I went home, met his father the next day and he said he wanted Ben to stay in rugby for one more year. And that was that.’’
The full Darling Downs team named today is:
1. Robbie O’Davis (Rangeville SS, 1984)
2. John McDonald (Toowoomba East SS, 1956)
3. Jason Little (Jimbour SS, 1982)
4. Tim Horan (Toowoomba East SS, 1982)
5. Chris Walker (Sacred Heart, 1992)
6. Michael Witt (Harristown SS, 1996)
7. Ben Walker (Sacred Heart, 1988)
8. Shane Webcke (Leyburn SS, 1986)
9. Andrew McCullough (Dalby SS, 2002)
10. Steve Price (Harristown SS, 1986)
11. Mark Hohn (Pittsworth SS, 1976)
12. Ben Lowe (Our Lady of Lourdes, 1997)
13. Carl Webb (Dalby SS, 1993)
14. Nathan Friend (Gatton SS, 1993)
15. Dan Stains (Middle Ridge SS, 1976)
16. Michael Luck (Mt Lofty SS, 1994)
17. Travis Burns (Texas SS, 1996)
The Sunshine Coast team is:
1. Aaron Whitchurch (Delany’s Creek SS, 2004)
2. Hymel Hunt (Deception Bay North SS, 2005)
3. Drew Mitchell (Southern Cross Catholic College, Scarborough, 1996)
4. Brent Tate (Scarborough SS, 1994)
5. Jason Moon (Currimundi SS, 1998)
6. Casey Mcguire (Our Lady of the Rosary, 1992)
7. Craig Polla-Mounter (Mooloolaba SS, 1983)
8. Petero Civoniceva (Humpybong SS, 1988)
9. Sam Obst (De La Salle, Redcliffe, 1992)
10. Dane Hogan (Bribie Island SS, 2001)
11. Louis Geraghty (Buderim Mountain SS, 2010)
12. Chris Flannery (Buddina SS, 1992)
13. Ben Jones (Scarborough SS, 1992)
14. Tom Opacic (Wamuran SS, 2006)
15. Craig Frawley (Humpybong SS, 1992)
16. Reed Mahoney (Landsborough SS, 2010)
17. Trent Purdon (Kurwongbah SS, 1993)
Originally published as How rugby league missed out on the best two centres in the world
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