In a new book, author and indispensable rugby commentator Gordon Bray had a brutal task picking from the 900 players who have represented Australia over 125 years.
Already a subscriber?So synonymous was Gordon Bray with rugby union commentary in Australia that as the game was catapulted into the professional era in the mid-1990s, commercial TV stations had to fold him into the deal as they bickered over broadcasting rights.
His mellifluously timbred voice is a far cry from what today has become an effort not so much to describe the on-field action as to scream about it, often in baying, primeval whoops and whoas. His research and sheer rugby acumen is the best placed to spirit supporters into the game’s pantheon., Bray admits his first reaction to being given the task was an “anxiety attack”. The statistics were themselves mountainous – he had to pick only 15 players from a cohort of 900 who had worn the Australian jersey over a period of 125 years.He was.
Only one from that period, the elegant Cyril Towers, the father of the distinctive running game of the Wallabies, makes the cut. And after the Second World War, there is only room for the oak-like John Thornett, wily halfback Ken Catchpole and the graceful centre Trevor Allan. Thornett is one of only four forwards in the line-up, alongside John Eales, Simon Poidevin and George Smith.
“Nineteen-year-old Trevor Allan became a Wallaby in New Zealand in his first year out of school. Astonishingly, Ken Catchpole was named as captain/coach for the 1961 Wallaby tour of South Africa at just 21 years of age… in formative high school, Michael Lynagh played gridiron in the US. It gave him an early exposure to the need for mental and physical toughness.
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