New Zealand 'Kangaroos'

Sean Fagan of RL1908.com

The inclusion of the Warriors into the premiership in 1995 meant that it was conceivable for players who qualified as Australian to be called upon by the national selectors.

However, the likelihood of such a selection still seemed remote given the small number of high profile Australians signing on with the Warriors.

Since 2000 though this has changed as the Warriors signed more Australians.

The Queensland State of Origin team began by selecting New Zealand based players Kevin Campion, PJ Marsh and Steven Price.

Meanwhile, Warriors prop forward Richard Villasanti came to the attention of Kiwi selectors as his form improved through the 2003 season. After playing for the Junior Kiwis in 1999, Villasanti represented Tonga at the 2000 World Cup. With his Polynesian background, most assumed he was a Kiwi and ineligible for Origin football and Australia.

However, Villasanti soon made it clear he was born in Canberra and declared his loyalty to playing for Australia, admitting this would also give him the opportunity to play State of Origin for New South Wales.

In early October 2003 the ARL announced the players selected for the Kangaroo Tour and Richard Villasanti was included. Many in the media heralded his selection as a first for a player in New Zealand.

Villasanti is clearly the first Warrior to gain Australian representative selection, however, he is actually the sixth New Zealand based player to be included in a Kangaroo Tour team. [Note 1]

In 1911 the 2nd Kangaroos included four players chosen from New Zealand, while the 3rd Kangaroos had one for their 1921 tour.

The inclusion of players from New Zealand in the 1911/12 Kangaroos can be traced back to the tour invitation issued by the English rugby league (Northern Union) authorities who asked that it be an ‘Australasian' team.

It had been originally mooted that the Kiwis would make their second tour to England in 1911/12. However, the change to requesting the visit of an ‘Australasian' side was probably the result of the visiting 1910 English Lions encountering little opposition outside of Sydney.

The two largest matches of the Lions tour were matches against 'Australasia' in Sydney. The team wore blue, maroon and black hooped jerseys and included players from NSW, Queensland and New Zealand. These games were extremely profitable (50,000 attended each) and provided tough challenges for the English team - one was a draw, the other they lost 32-15.

The concept of 'Australasia' was in regular use at the time. Many workplace unions and other groups had the term in their name.

So the invitation was issued to the NSWRL to send their team to England, but the side had to be representative of 'Australasia' rather than just Australia.

The NSWRL arranged a triangular series for the 1911 season between NSW, Queensland and New Zealand with a view to selecting the Kangaroos. However, after poor performances by both the Kiwis and the Queenslanders in the games in Sydney the concept was abandoned.

When the Kangaroos 28-man tour party was announced there was just one Queenslander and four New Zealanders included in the so called ‘Australasian' team.

They were however decked out appropriately, wearing a sky blue NSW jersey with a large maroon "A" on the left breast, along with black Kiwi shorts and Queensland maroon socks. The official logo featured the capital "A" letter imposed over a fern and a kangaroo.

The four players from New Zealand were forwards Arthur Francis, George Gillett and Charlie Savory, along with half-back Frank Woodward. Both Francis and Gillett were very well known players in Australia, having played for the All Blacks in Sydney and Brisbane in Tests in 1907 - the bulk of their opponents switched to rugby league over the following seasons.

George Gillett - a 1905 New Zealand All Black who played for the Kangaroos (1911-12)

George Gillett was also a member of the famous 1905 All Blacks that toured England. Interestingly, he spent the early years of the 1900s in the goldfields of Kalgoorlie where he is believed to have represented Western Australia at Australian rules.

Whether selection bias raised its head on tour is not clear, but of the New Zealand Kangaroos only Francis rose to noteworthy heights. Of all the tourists Francis was unusually tall at 6'3" (1.90m) and strongly built, with a playing weight of 14 stone (89kg). He was also a handy goal kicker.

At the conclusion of the tour the team's manager Johnny Quinlan said: "Boller Francis was one of the best forwards the Dominion has produced - his diving tackles being as clever as they were thrilling."

In the fourth game of the tour Francis starred in a win over the Lancashire county side at Blackburn. Francis kicked five goals and scored two tries in the 25-12 win. This set up his inclusion in the team for the first Test.

He featured strongly as Australia defeated England for the first time in a Test match. In the second Test the result was a draw, which meant the series would be decided in the third. Australia argued it could have won the 2nd Test as a penalty goal attempt from Francis was signalled a goal by one of the touch judges (who was Australian). The other touch judge and referee disagreed and ruled no goal.

Francis did not play in the deciding Test which Australia won to clinch the Ashes for the first time. Their achievement in winning the Ashes in England stood for 51 years. Francis was the top point scorer on the tour with 125 points (9 tries, 49 goals) - almost double the next best.

Bolla Francis (left) and Herb Gilbert 1911-12 Kangaroos

Bolla (or Boller) Francis captained New Zealand in 1912 before returning to England to play for Wigan.

He was apparently by then known as Alf Francis and was a member of the Hull team that won the Challenge Cup in 1914.

Francis, playing on the wing, scored the match winning try from a pass from fellow 1911/12 Kangaroo Herb Gilbert. [Note 2]

While Charlie Savory did not feature highly on the Kangaroo tour, back home in New Zealand he played Tests for the Kiwis against the visting English Lions in 1914.

Weeks later WW1 broke out and Charlie Savory enlisted for the army. Savory died from wounds received at the Dardanelles in mid 1915.

The Auckland Weekly News reported that "he played the Rugby Union game for some years and then transferring to the Rugby League, accepted a position in the combined NZ & NSW team which toured England. He played for Auckland and NZ on many subsequent occasions, his last appearance here being as a member of the NZ team which put up such a fight against the English team at the Domain last August."

"He was a man of fine physique. He enlisted in the Auckland section of the Army Service Corps and left NZ with the main expeditionary force."

The Kangaroo tour to England in 1921 was again conducted by the NSWRL with its representatives styled as ‘Australasia'. In reality there was just one New Zealander this time in the 28-man party - five-eighth Bert Laing.

The Kangaroos wore sky blue jerseys and navy blue shorts. The badge on the jersey was in colours of maroon, blue and black and incorporated a big "A" surmounted with a fern and kangaroo.

The Kangaroos first stop on their voyage via the ‘RMS Tahiti' to England was in New Zealand, which included the playing of an exhibition match at the Basin Reserve in Wellington. Laing was called upon to play in only ten of the 36 games and did not play any of the Test matches.

In 1923 a NSW team toured New Zealand and it included many of the 1921/22 Kangaroos. A highlight of the tour was an exhibition match in Auckland between ‘The Kangaroos' and ‘The Rest'. Bert Laing played in the Kangaroos side, while ‘The Rest' was made up from local Auckland stars and the remaining NSW players. The Kangaroos won by 65-27.

Eighty years later, Richard Villasanti became the second New Zealand based player to turn out for the Kangaroos in the Dominion, when he played in the 18 October 2003 Test at North Harbour Stadium.

[Note 1 - while there have also been a handful of other New Zealanders to have gained selection for the Kangaroos while living in Australia, they are not the subject of this article]

[Note 2 - there are conflicting reports that record Alf Francis of the Hull 1914 side as being Welsh]

[Note 3 - Steven Price (NZ Warriors) represented Australia in the 2005 Tri-Nations tournament, including the Test against New Zealand in Auckland.]