Redcap's BRL

Local author John Birmingham once rather memorably described Brisbane in the 1980s as the product of a “100-year-old political economy that fashioned the state capital as nothing more than a pass-through for beef, coal and pineapples”. 

While Birmingham has been known to exaggerate a little, there’s a fair dollop of truth in this. Brisbane was always growing and evolving in its own way but, like many cities, remained a patchwork with a nagging sense of impermanence. It’s partly what David Malouf was getting at in his description of a ‘weatherboard city’; of houses floating above it “on blocks and stumps [having] about them the improvised air of tree houses”.

This is a theme I’m going to explore today through the lens of the Brisbane Rugby League.

The BRL was an institution but still had a sense of transience about it. Young players from the bush looking to make a name for themselves, established players looking for lucrative gigs in the bush, a way-station on the trip to Sydney, a haven for those who hadn’t quite made it, or were done, in Sydney. And there are some very interesting names among them.

I’d wager that anybody likely to read this blog knows all about the Brisbane-based swan songs of John Sattler and Clive Churchill, Ken McCaffery’s stint at Valleys, and probably even about a guy like Alan Hornery, a middling Sydney first-grader who won a couple of premierships in Brisbane and ended up playing for Australia (and the USA All Stars!).

So, I’ll leave them be and focus on 13 players who were well known for their exploits in rugby league, not necessarily for what they did in the BRL.

Fullback: Bill Keato, Wests 1945

A premiership winner, prolific point-scorer and life member at Western Suburbs in Sydney, Keato was one of a few prominent players who found themselves in Brisbane during World War II and made fleeting appearances in the BRL.

Others, like St George fullback and future fast-bowling legend Ray Lindwall (1 game for Valleys in ’43) and Balmain’s Pat Devery (3 games for Valleys in ’45), are probably better known. Another prominent blow-in is included in the back row of this team.

Keato starred in his only game for the Brisbane version of Wests, scoring a brace of tries and goals in a 13-9 victory over Brothers at Oxenham Park in the opening round of the ’45 season.

At the time, clubs were at the mercy of war-time priorities and could rarely count on players being available from one week to the next, if at all. And so it was with Keato. The following weekend the Sunday Mail reported that “Wests were without their army star, Bill Keato, who has been transferred”.

Keato picked up where he left off with Wests of Sydney in 1946, going on to play more than 100 games for the Magpies and finish as their all-time leading point-scorer when he retired in 1950.

Winger: Robin Smith, Valleys 1945

There were also a few rugby league players who found themselves in Brisbane during the war and were able to settle in for a full season or two.

One was South Sydney winger Robin Smith, who after a promising debut season in 1943 was lost to army duties in ’44, before resurfacing north of the border at Valleys in ’45.

Smith had quite a campaign in royal blue, scoring 14 times to finish the season’s leading try-scorer and winning selection in the Queensland team. The highlight of his season in the BRL was a brilliant five-try performance in Valleys’ 49-0 demolition of Brothers at the Gabba in late July.

Smith returned to South Sydney in ’46, though that was his final season in first grade. He’ll always have that one great season in the BRL.

Centre: Maurie Robertson, South Coast 1953

19 tests for New Zealand, captain on their 1951 tour of Great Britain, ‘New Zealand Legend of League’ #288, Maurie Robertson was a big signing by the fledgling South Coast team ahead of the 1953 BRL season.

For those not familiar, South Coast was the Gold Coast’s first foray into top-grade league. They were based at Southport, wore royal blue and white hoops, and in what was to become typical Gold Coast fashion, didn’t win much, lasted only two seasons and disappeared without a trace.

Robertson was appointed captain-coach and had a very good season, winning selection in the Brisbane Bulimba Cup team and leading his club side from bottom of the ladder to second from bottom, ahead of Wynnum-Manly who they beat 34-25 in a rollicking affair at Southport in round 12.

But the highlight of the season was an upset 18-13 win over the defending premiers Wests at the Gabba in round 16, with Robertson scoring a try and according to the Sunday Mail “[engineering] most of their scoring moves with the necessary bit of finer play on the inside”.

Robertson returned to New Zealand after South Coast’s demise and had a successful coaching career, including a stint as head coach of the national team in the mid-1960s.

Centre: Lou Meibush, Westerns 1917-18

Lou Meibush is best known as an Australian rugby union international and, later, as part of the great Toowoomba rugby league teams of the 1920s, alongside the likes of Tom Gorman, Duncan Thompson, Vic Armbruster, Herb Seinhort, Et Al.

With rugby union suspended during World War I, Meibusch briefly landed at the short-lived Westerns club, where his brother Bob was already a key forward.

Westerns were based at Paddington and eventually folded into near-neighbours Wests, but they had a very good team and season in 1917, with future Kangaroos Jim Bennett and Nev Broadfoot, and former Wests premiership-winning half Billy Brereton also on the roster.

While Westerns were good, Wests were great, defending premiers with a team which included Norm Potter, Bill Dunne, Os Hardy and Clarrie Horder, so Westerns’ 13-8 knockout semi-final win at the Gabba was one of the biggest boilovers in BRL history. Alas, Westerns fell to Merthyr in the following weekend’s Final and they were out of the league by the end of 1918.

Meibusch went back to rugby union until the QRU disbanded in 1919, before heading home to Toowoomba to finish his career in league.

Winger: Harold Horder, Coorparoo 1925-26

Plenty of folk know that the great Harold Horder, scorer of 152 tries in 136 games for Souths and Norths in Sydney, had a stint with Coorparoo in the mid-1920s (not to mention brother Clarrie having played for Wests a few years earlier).

Less known might be the Horder phenomenon which swept Brisbane in 1925. Despite being on the wrong side of 30 by the time he arrived at Coorparoo, the great man still had it. He was the league’s leading try-scorer, leading point-scorer and inspired Coorparoo to the minor premiership after their disappointing 1924 season.

The round 13 game between Wests and Coorparoo, and in particular the duel between Horder and Queensland speedster Cec Aynsley, saw a huge crowd descend on Davies Park (or ‘the Dairy’ as it was often called in those days). And they weren’t disappointed, with Aysnley scoring a hat-trick, Horder a double and the Sunday paper Truth reporting that “thrill followed thrill with bewildering rapidity… at Davies Park yesterday afternoon. The game was astounding…”

But Horder’s quest for a BRL premiership was cruelled by an example of the bizarre scheduling which could occur at the time. In early September, just before the final premiership round commenced, a Queensland team set off for a tour of New Zealand, taking, among others, Coorparoo’s gun centre ‘Paddy’ Crouch and hooker Arthur Henderson. Horder and the ‘Roos were beaten by Brothers in the Semi-Final and then by Carlton in the Challenge Final.

Horder came back for another season in 1926 but only managed a few games before a serious knee injury, described by Rugby League News as a ‘slipped cartilage’, brought his career to a close.

Five-eighth: Bill Farnsworth, Kurilpa 1912

In one of the more mysterious episodes in BRL history, Newtown’s premiership-winning pivot and 1911 Kangaroo tourist Bill Farnsworth abruptly left Newtown in June 1912 to join the new BRL electoral district team on the Kurilpa peninsula.

The local papers suggested some form of inducement was in play. Who knew the short-lived and unsuccessful Kurilpa club had inducements to offer?

Farnsworth made an immediate impression, with Kurilpa thumping Woolloongabba 32-0 in his first (and possibly last) appearance, also Kurilpa’s first win, and one of only two in their short history.

I can find no further record of Farnsworth playing in the BRL, though records from the 1912 season are very patchy. Whatever the case, Farnsworth left to join Oldham in late 1912 and finished his career in England after World War I.

Halfback: Duncan Thompson, West End 1920

I knew Duncan Thompson was a champion player in Ipswich and Toowoomba, that he won a couple of premierships with North Sydney and that he’s regarded by some historians as Australia’s finest pre-WWII halfback. I had no idea he had a brief layover at West End in 1920 before he headed back to Sydney.

It was just two games at the start of the rather strange 1920 season but Thompson certainly made an impact, booting the ‘All Blacks’ to victory over Railways and scoring a try in a ‘sensational’ draw against Carlton, with the Daily Mail noting that “Thompson, who had made several clear openings that were not availed of, short punted over the striped heads and won in a grand race with Bath”. If only our modern version of journalists (content creators) wrote so colourfully.

Thompson rejoined North Sydney in June 1920, and the rest is Bears’ history.

Lock: Don Furner, Wynnum-Manly 1954

Admittedly, I’m not sure about this one.

Don Furner – the Don of the Canberra ‘Furners’, Kangaroo coach in the 1980s, father of David Furner – was certainly in Queensland at the time, playing in Toowoomba and producing excellent performances in the Bulimba Cup.

It seems unlikely that he went to Wynnum for one game, a 27-15 loss to Valleys at Davies Park in the final round of the 1954 BRL, before going back to Toowoomba the following season, but some reports suggest that maybe he did.

Stranger things have happened in the BRL and lots of players were moving to, from and within Queensland in the mid-1950s. There was also another Furner at Wynnum in ’54, centre and goal-kicker Kevin Furner. Possibly, maybe…

Addendum: Following some feedback from readers, I’ve decided that Don Furner almost certainly did not play for Wynnum-Manly in 1954, despite a reference to him in the press. The most likely explanation is that the old Truth newspaper got him and centre Kevin Furner mixed up. Don Furner was, at the time, a prominent representative player in Queensland and he may have sprung to mind when the name ‘Furner’ came into the reporter’s head.

Second row: Herb Narvo, Souths 1944

Back to WWII and the interesting case of Herb Narvo, Newtown back-rower, Kangaroo, general hard man, future heavyweight boxing champion and RAAF instructor.

He’s another who played just one BRL game, Souths’ loss to Norths in the 1944 Preliminary Final. How he ended up there remains something of mystery, though one can speculate.

Herb’s brother Reg was playing for Souths in ’44 and had done well, helping them finish second and qualify for the Major Semi-Final. But Souths lost to Valleys and, even worse, Reg, Bill Tyquin, Nev Brough and Jack Jager were unavailable for the Preliminary Final the following weekend.

Enter Herb, who’d played in Newtown’s crushing semi-final win over St George at the SCG the weekend prior, and veteran North Sydney five-eighth Rex Harrison, evidently an Army man. The two were presumably in Brisbane on service duty, and both were rushed into the Souths team for the game.

It didn’t work – Harrison was anonymous and Souths’ rejigged pack was no match for battle-hardened Norths forwards Mick Power, Roy Stewart and Vic Rudd.

After his harrowing experience in the BRL, Herb returned to Newtown, then won the heavyweight title and captain-coached St George to a narrow defeat in the Grand Challenge Final against Balmain in ’46.

Second row: Kel O’Shea, Souths 1955

Kel O’Shea was picked for Queensland and Australia in 1954 while still playing in his home town, Ayr, and became half of a great back-row combination for the Kangaroos alongside the Immortal Norm Provan, winning the Ashes in ’54 and World Cup in ’57.

Naturally, O’Shea was much in demand and in 1956 he joined the poker-machine-money-infused ‘millionaires’ of Wests in Sydney.

On the way, he took in Brisbane and had half a season with Souths in ’55, joining a team which had some serious quality (Tom Tyquin, Alan Hornery, Norm McLean) but were mostly poor.

His efforts were certainly appreciated and it seems O’Shea and fellow back-rower Tyquin tackled pretty much everything they could get their hands on, while their mostly mediocre teammates floundered.

After he headed south the following year, O’Shea played in three Grand Finals with the Sydney version of the Magpies, including the famous and controversial Provan-Summons mud bath of 1963, but was never able to get the better of Provan and the great St George eleven-peaters.

Prop: Harry Melville, Valleys 1953

Speaking of that great St George team and their eleven-straight premierships, one of the guys who got the run started in 1956, Harry Melville, had honed his craft through a season at Valleys in ’53.

Melville actually debuted for the Dragons in 1949 and was a part of that year’s premiership squad, before spending a couple of years as a rugby league nomad, taking in Brisbane, Lismore and Harden, a small town in the vicinity of both Yass and Wagga Wagga.

Rugby League News noted that Valleys had secured Melville’s services “by a band of Valleys supporters and well wishers”. They didn’t elaborate on exactly what this involved, but one imagines the Valley network had set him up with a job, a place to stay and so on.

Melville played a part in re-establishing Valleys as a force in the BRL after an uncharacteristically lean few years, mucking in with emerging fullback Norm Pope, young lock Ray Paulsen and skilful back-rower Norm McFadden to take Valleys all the way to a Preliminary Final defeat to the eventual premiers Souths.

One of the highlights of his season in Brisbane was a two-try performance against South Coast in round 11, with Truth remarking that “ex-Sydney second-rower Harry Melville, now at his top, shone again to be the pick of the winning pack”.

Melville went back to the Dragons in ’55 and scored a try in their 1956 Grand Final victory, before retiring after he lost his place to former BRL premiership-winner Harry Bath in ’57.

Hooker: Claude O’Donnell, Carlton 1919, West End 1920

Carlton, nascent parent club of the Souths Magpies, pulled off something of a coup when they landed former rugby union international and South Sydney rake, Claude O’Donnell for the 1919 season.

O’Donnell helped Carlton get their first season off to a flying start in a 31-0 thrashing of local rivals West End in the season’s opening round. The Daily Standard commented that West End “hardly saw the ball” due to the “continual heeling of the ball by C O’Donnell, the South Sydney expert”.

O’Donnell went straight into the Queensland team and played all four Tests for Australia against New Zealand that same year.

The expert rake defected to West End the following year and also played in the hybrid West End-Grammars team in the second phase of that strange 1920 BRL season. A stint in Ipswich followed before O’Donnell finished his career at North Sydney in 1923.

Prop: Henry Porter, Valleys 1943-45

Henry ‘Tarzan’ Porter had an interesting relationship with Brisbane. A premiership player with Newtown in 1933 and Canterbury in ’38 and ’42, Porter moved to Brisbane during WWII and linked with Valleys, immediately establishing himself as one of the league’s best forwards.

But the stars never quite aligned for Porter, with his war-time duties forcing him to miss the 1943 Grand Final loss to Brothers and most of Valleys’ 1944 premiership season.

He returned for a full season in 1945 and produced one of his finest performances against Wests in the Minor Semi-Final, before an even stronger Souths pack featuring Bill Tyquin, Harry Bath and Alan Thompson was too good in the Preliminary Final.

A couple of years later, Porter returned on Canterbury’s infamous post-season tour of Brisbane and Ipswich. It didn’t end well.

Reserve: AN Other-Fillup, Wests 1923

Lastly, no list of blow-ins and transients would be complete without mention of one-time Wests forward and enduring mystery man, AN Other-Fillup. His one BRL appearance in 1923 is the only known occasion in which the ubiquitous AN Other actually got a game.

After the triumph of their unbeaten premiership season in 1922, Wests’ title defence began with inspirational skipper Norm Potter accepting a better offer in Rockhampton, a thrashing by Carlton in the Scott Cup semi-final, defeat in their first three league games and most of the remaining premiership team being taken away by injury, representative selection or both.

Running a lonely last and struggling to get a team together, Wests entered their round 11 game against Carlton at Davies Park with a forward described by the Brisbane Courier as “an emergency”, the Daily Mail as “A Fillup” and the Daily Standard as “AN Other”. Despite Other’s best efforts, Wests were beaten 39-18.

Who was this mystery man? We may never know, but it’s entirely possible Wests simply dragged somebody off the street.