Maroons ‘mighty midgets’ punch above their weight to beat best of NSW 114-0

A bold group of Queensland youngsters whitewashed the best that NSW rugby league could offer and memories are still fresh 50 years on. Jim Tucker delves into history.

Coach Lew Cooper (far right) and his Queensland six-stone schoolboys rugby league team return home from their undefeated 1969 tour of NSW. Wayne Banks in glasses (front row, second from right). Photo: Barry Pascoe.

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They were lauded as the “mighty midgets”, a band of 12-year-olds who embarrassed the pride of NSW junior rugby league to such a degree they flew home as 114-0 heroes.

In the days when footy was played in weight divisions, all packed their punch under the old six-stone limit and the thrill of 50 years ago is still fresh in the minds of many.

“Remember? Who wouldn’t when you’re playing a curtain-raiser before a Souths-St George game and sharing a dressing room to meet absolute legends like Johnny Raper, Graeme Langlands, Phil Hawthorne and Billy Smith,” said Kerry Fraser, 61.

To paint the full picture, it was the tour of tours for the Queensland Six-Stone Schoolboys Rugby League team.

They’d been picked for a seven-game tour of NSW in 1969 under the State primary schools banner and they came home undefeated.

Coach Lew Cooper (far right) and his Queensland six-stone schoolboys rugby league team return home from their undefeated 1969 tour of NSW. Wayne Banks in glasses (front row, second from right) Photo: Barry Pascoe

Winger Wayne Banks, 62, represented his teammates last month at Carina Leagues Club for the 100-year celebration of Queensland’s rich primary schools rugby league history.

On the 1969 tour, interstate fortunes were flipped. The young Queenslanders beat the best NSW could muster 13-0 in Newcastle, 8-0 at Penrith Park and 8-0 at St George’s Jubilee Oval for a historic clean sweep of the “Tests”.

“Even at our young age, the dislike for NSW was in-built and having Lew Cooper as coach just added to it,” Banks said.

“I remember as a kid sitting around the family radio listening to interstate rugby league games where Queensland teams were being beaten by NSW sides stacked with the best Queensland players who’d headed to Sydney.”

The indefatigable Cooper was sadly missing at Carina Leagues Club. He died earlier this year but the one-off former boss of the Queensland Cricketers’ Club didn’t need to dig too deep into his 34-game first class career as a Queensland wicketkeeper to tap disdain for NSW.

Fraser (Souths and Brothers), 1980 premiership-winner Brian Bird (Norths), Greg Sullivan (Wests) and 1979 Queensland centre Mark Payne, a classy two-time premiership back with Easts (1977-78), were among those who went on to play first grade rugby league in Brisbane.

Tour star Robert “The Boot” Swanson was skipper and the first around-the-corner goalkicker most of his teammates had ever seen when booting them from near the sideline.

“With penalty kicks, he put every one out on the full. This I know because he was on a fine of 20 cents for every kick he didn’t put out and he never had to pay up once on tour,” Cooper wrote in his tour report.

Wayne Banks (left) and former Queensland hooker Johnny Lang at the recent 100-year Celebration of Queensland’s rich primary schools rugby league history.

Rockhampton product Banks played Australian Schoolboys rugby union in 1975 beside future Wallabies Steve Williams and Chris Roche, represented Queensland Country and was a Wests rugby stalwart in the early 1980s.

“That chance to meet Johnny Raper and Billy Smith and shake hands with the biggest hand any of us had ever seen when we met (the late) Apisai Toga in the dressing room was a special memory,” Banks said of the St George league idols of the day.

Cooper was a teacher at Stafford State School at the time and his shrewd handling of the team with manager Brian Stirling made a major difference.

“Lew didn’t pick 17 boys based on positions. He picked the best 17 players,” Fraser said.

“How he taught us to carry ourselves and look the part on and off the field was a lesson for life.”

Centre Mark Payne in his prime for Easts in Brisbane in the late 1970s.

Sullivan had never played hooker or at dummy-half before the tour but excelled at both under Cooper’s guidance as the coach enforced his “Three Ts” principle … tackle, time (training) and togetherness.

Cooper would wryly have appreciated the nine cautions for overvigorous tackling in the first two Tests against NSW as a sign the boys had really absorbed his demands on tackling like you meant it.

There were highlights aplenty, starting with the weigh-in in Sydney to make sure all in the 17-strong party were under the six-stone limit (38kg).

“It was a breakfast weigh-in and Lew had a competition for who could eat the most as soon as it was over … bacon, eggs, sausages, all you could eat,”’ Banks said.

The Queensland boys beat Wagga Wagga (31-0), Riverina (28-0), Combined Hills Districts (23-0) and Sydney’s Metropolitan West (3-0) on top of the sweep of NSW.

“We couldn’t believe the crowd waiting for us at Brisbane Airport when we flew home and had our photo taken for The Courier-Mail,” Fraser said.

When you beat the best of NSW in league 114-0, you deserve it.