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Born | Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia | 4 May 1928||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 9 June 2009 81) Brisbane, Queensland, Australia | (aged||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Position | Five-eighth, Centre | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Father | Cyril Connell Sr. |
Cyril Connell (born 4 May 1928 in Rockhampton, Queensland, died 9 June 2009 in Brisbane, Queensland) was an Australian rugby league footballer who played in the 1940s and 1950s. An Australian international and Queensland Maroons representative centre/five-eighth, he played his club football in Toowoomba and Rockhampton. At the time of his death, he had been a recruitment scout for the Brisbane Broncos club of the NRL for several years. He was also the son of former rugby league footballer and administrator Cyril Connell Sr.
A similar build to the diminutive Clive Churchill, Connell Junior debuted for Rockhampton Brothers in 1947. He linked with Toowoomba's Newtown team in 1950 where, under the guidance of noted coach Duncan Thompson, he secured a Queensland jumper. He wore the maroon jumper 25 times between 1952 and 1957.
Connell reached the pinnacle as a player when selected for Australia against New Zealand in 1956. He toured with the 1956-57 Kangaroos. While he failed to play a Test match against Great Britain, he played in 14 tour matches in England and France, [2] captaining the Australian team many times.
Connell was a secondary school maths teacher at Brisbane State High School, where he befriended student and future rugby league player and administrator Paul Morgan. Connell worked his way up to deputy director of secondary education in Queensland. During the 1970s Connell also worked as a rugby league commentator for ABC Radio in Queensland. [3]
In 1990, Connell was chosen by Brisbane Broncos founding chairman, Paul Morgan, to be a recruitment officer for the Broncos. Connell found countless young players for the Broncos, notably including Shane Webcke, Tonie Carroll, Petero Civoniceva, Darren Lockyer, Wendell Sailor, Lote Tuqiri, Shaun Berrigan, Brent Tate and Karmichael Hunt, all of whom represented Queensland at State of Origin level.
In 2007, the main training facility for the Brisbane Broncos, the Cyril Connell High Performance Centre, was named after him due to his years of service to the club. He died in 2009. [4]
The Brisbane Broncos Rugby League Football Club Ltd., commonly referred to as the Broncos, is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Red Hill, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in April 1987, the Broncos currently compete in the National Rugby League (NRL) and play their home games at Suncorp Stadium in nearby Milton.
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Shane Webcke is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer, who spent his entire club career playing for the Brisbane Broncos. Webcke represented Queensland in the State of Origin 21 times and also captained the side. He made 26 test appearances for Australia. His position was prop forward and at his peak he was renowned as the best front rower in the world. Alongside Glenn Lazarus and Arthur Beetson, Webcke is considered by many to have been one of the finest post-war front-rowers to play the game.
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In Queensland, Rugby league was introduced in 1908 and is the most watched winter sport in the state and the second most participated football code after soccer. Within its first decade it surpassed rugby union there to become the most popular football code as players switched to play professionally in the Queensland Rugby League (QRL). In the 1920s, Queenslanders began leaving to play professionally in the New South Wales Rugby League which became a more popular competition. However Queensland maintained a strong rugby league culture, with the state continuing to perform well in interstate rugby league. The later advent of the State of Origin series ensured that players would return to represent their state. Regarded as “Australian sport's greatest rivalry”, the term "Origin fever" is used by the media to describe the passion of the Queenslanders public for the competition and the chant "Queenslander!", attributed to Billy Moore in 1995, has become the state's battle cry. The Queensland Rugby League is the governing body and has 58,912 adult and 33,940 child tackle players. Rugby league authorities often count touch football players as participants, though that sport is only loosely affiliated and is separately governed by Touch Football Queensland.
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