Australian rugby has had its own notorious on-field battles. The most infamous occurred in May 1975 when the Australia versus England Test match in Brisbane degenerated into a slugfest that became known as the Battle of Ballymore.
Rugby had never experienced such furious frontline fighting. It resulted from Australian coach David Brockhoff, concerned his players were too soft, telling them they had to adopt a ‘step forward’ approach against England. From the kick-off they had to intimidate England. The call to arms was ‘Bondi Beach’. As soon as that was uttered, it was one in, all in. No excuses.
The cry was made in the opening seconds of the Ballymore Test, and after England caught the ball, Australian prop Stu Macdougall merrily kicked any opposition head within sight. The Australian pack joined in, throwing punches every which way. The first lineout turned into an all-in brawl. Then England prop Mike Burton was sent off for cleaning out an Australian opponent.
At half-time a seething Australian Rugby Union president Bill McLaughlin sent a note to Brockhoff: ‘You’ve brought the game into disrepute. Call your dogs off. Otherwise you will be sacked.’
Australia went on to win the fights and the football to record its first Ballymore triumph. One of the Australian players that day was Bob Brown, who at fullback was some distance away from the mayhem, but knew how to handle himself. An army officer who played rugby when his military duties did not clash, Brown discovered representative football via the Royal Military College, Duntroon.
His two Test appearances resulted in two victories, before committing himself to his role as an infantry officer, serving over the next three decades in Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan. His rugby connection remains strong. The now retired army brigadier has in recent years been the president of the ACT Brumbies. Other notable rugby officials with military backgrounds include recent Australian rugby directors Michael von Berg and Geoff Stooke.
Since the Second World War, the number of Australian rugby players in the armed forces has dropped off. The defence ranks are now predominantly made up of those pursuing a career in the armed forces. The ranks have thinned since the Second World War due to increased public opposition to Australia’s involvement in foreign battles, and heightened questioning of this country’s sometimes blinkered links with the British Empire and the United States.
Representative rugby, particularly since the game in Australia turned professional in 1992, is a virtual full-time exercise, and so the two often don’t overlap. A defence force life makes it nigh impossible to pursue a representative rugby career. Some have succeeded, or used one as a lead-in to the other.
These include Gregg Burrow, a member of Australia’s 1984 Grand Slam and 1986 Bledisloe Cup squads. As part of his medical training, the front-rower was sponsored by the Royal Australian Navy, spending six months at sea with Deploy Units in South-East Asia in 1990. Wallaby backrower Jim Williams was introduced to rugby at 16 when joining the army.
The unlucky ones include fullback Ian Mackay, a company commander in Vietnam. In 1957, instead of going to Malaya with an infantry battalion, he remained in Australia, as he was in contention for the Wallaby Northern Hemisphere tour. Before the final Wallaby trial match, he was taken to hospital with hepatitis. He was not picked. The following year, Mackay had to decline a Wallaby trial due to Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) duties. He instead became an Australian Barbarians representative.
The most prominent military identities associated with Australian rugby in recent times have been Sir Roden Cutler, a Victoria Cross winner during the 1941 Syrian campaign, and General Peter Cosgrove, who received the Military Cross during the Vietnam War. For years, every winter Saturday afternoon, Sir Roden would be on the sideline at Sydney University Oval watching the Students play. The NSW Governor’s nephew Steve Cutler played 40 Tests for Australia.
Although never bothering representative selectors during his playing days, the now Australian Governor-General’s passion towards rugby and the Wallabies remains.
It was at Duntroon when Cosgrove went into the army in 1965 where his rugby blossomed. As Cosgrove explained in his autobiography My Story: ‘I became much bigger, much stronger, much fitter and discovered the sense of mongrel that helps enormously in a game of rugby.’
This was followed by ‘highly enjoyable seasons with the battalion at Holsworthy’ and then playing for an army team in the Hunter Valley competition, where on bush fields the loose forward’s failed tackling attempts would see him end up sliding through ‘an extraordinarily large, fragrantly fresh, pile of horse manure’.
Between 2007 and 2013, the former Australian Defence Force chief was an Australian Rugby Union director. This was no token appointment, as Cosgrove was heavily involved in the running of the game, including introducing a new constitution, as well as representing Australia at overseas Test matches. His presence often inspired Wallaby teams.
Cosgrove explained at a Sydney University rugby luncheon, the same club James McManamey from Chapter 1 hailed from, that he was the type of player ‘who lay contentedly on the bottom of a ruck, composing sonnets on the one hand, and, on another plane, contemplating applying the squirrel grip to an opponent’.
So many of those mentioned in this book would know exactly what the general is talking about. Pain, passion and pride in a dangerous but sometimes poetic pursuit.