There have been over 830 rugby league footballers who have been selected to represent Australia since the nation first started playing international matches in 1908. The Australian Rugby League administered the team and maintained the Australian national rugby league team or "The Kangaroos" players register, assigning each player an individual cap number [1] until 2012 when this was taken over by the Australian Rugby League Commission. [2]
The first Kangaroo was Arthur Hennessey, as he was the original captain of the side. The rest were added in alphabetical order, then in order of selection. Inclusion in the Kangaroos register denotes a player's selection for a Kangaroos squad and does not necessarily mean an actual full international appearance was made. The year selected represents the first year in which they were called up for international duties and the appearances represent full international matches. New Zealand players who were selected to play for 'Australasian' representative teams are also included.
Super League test appearances, although counted as such by their overseas counterparts, have been disregarded by the sport's Australian governing body so are excluded from their register.
During the split season of 1997, the Australian Super League organisation held internationals with New Zealand and Great Britain. These are considered bona fide test matches by the British Rugby Football League, the New Zealand Rugby League and Rugby League International Federation but are excluded from the Australian Rugby League's records.
The Australian national rugby league team, the Kangaroos, have represented Australia in senior men's rugby league football competitions since the establishment of the game in Australia in 1908. Administered by the Australian Rugby League Commission, the Kangaroos are ranked first in the IRL Men's World Rankings. The team is the most successful in Rugby League World Cup history, having won the competition 12 times, and contested 15 of the 16 finals, only failing to reach the final in the 1954 inaugural tournament. Only five nations have beaten Australia in test matches, and Australia has an overall win percentage of 69%.
Laurie William Daley AM, also known by the nicknames of "Lozza" and "Loz", is an Australian professional rugby league football coach and a former player who played as a centre and five-eighth in the late 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.
Bradley Carnegie Thorn is a New Zealand Australian rugby union coach and former rugby league and rugby union footballer. Born in New Zealand, he represented Australia in rugby league and New Zealand in rugby union in a twenty-two year career as a player, starting at age nineteen and finishing at age forty-one. He was the head coach of the Australian Super Rugby Pacific team, the Queensland Reds. Thorn is their second longest-serving coach in history and their longest serving coach in the professional era.
Denis "Dinny" Lutge was a pioneer Australian rugby league and rugby union player, a dual-code international. He was the second ever captain of the Australian national rugby league team and the first to lead the side to victory.
Robert Fulton, also nicknamed "Bozo", was an Australian international rugby league footballer, coach and later commentator. Fulton played, coached, selected for and has commentated on the game with great success at the highest levels and has been named amongst Australia's greatest rugby league players of the 20th century. As a player Fulton won three premierships with the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles in the 1970s, the last as captain. He represented the Australian national side on thirty-five occasions, seven times as captain. He had a long coaching career at the first grade level, taking Manly to premiership victory in 1987 and 1996. He coached the Australian national team in thirty-nine Tests. He was a New South Wales State selector and a national selector. He was a radio commentator with 2GB at the time of his death in 2021, aged 73. In 1981, he was selected as one of the initial four post-war "Immortals" of the Australian game and, in 2008, he was named in Australia's team of the century.
Petero Civoniceva, is a Fijian-Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. A Queensland State of Origin and Australian international representative prop forward, in 2009 he broke the record for most international matches for Australia of any forward in history. Civoniceva played his club football for the Brisbane Broncos, with whom he won the 1998, 2000 and 2006 NRL Premierships, as well as for the Penrith Panthers, whom he captained. Late in his career whilst playing for the Redcliffe Dolphins in the Queensland Cup, Civoniceva captained the Fiji national team in their 2013 Rugby League World Cup campaign. The Petero Civoniceva Medal is awarded to the Australian Fijian rugby league footballer of the year, while the Civoniceva Medal is awarded to the Queensland Cup player voted as the best and fairest.
Gary Larson is an Australian former rugby league footballer who played as a lock, prop and second-row forward in the 1980s and 1990s.
Keith Victor Holman, MBE was an Australian Rugby League footballer, a national and state representative Halfback whose club career was played with Western Suburbs from 1949 to 1961.
Frank Semu Pritchard, also known by the nicknames "Cranky" and "Frank the Tank", is a former professional rugby league footballer who represented New Zealand and Samoa at international level. A second-row, he played in the National Rugby League for Sydney clubs the Penrith Panthers, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and the Parramatta Eels during the 2000s and 2010s. Pritchard also played in the Super League for English club Hull FC.
Christopher Hobart McKivat was an Australian rugby union and rugby league player – a dual-code rugby international. He represented the Wallabies in over 20 Tests and tour matches from 1907 to 1909 and the Kangaroos in 5 Tests from 1910 to 1912. He is unique in Australian rugby history as the only man to captain both the national rugby union and rugby league teams. Following his playing career he became the most successful coach of North Sydney in the club's history.
Brian Patrick Carlson was an Australian professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a centre & utility back for the Australia national team. He played in 17 Tests and 6 World Cup games between 1952 and 1961, as captain on 2 occasions. He is considered one of the nation's finest footballers of the 20th century.
Kerrod Walters is an Australian former rugby league footballer. A Queensland State of Origin and Australian international representative hooker, he played most of his club football with the Brisbane Broncos, with whom he won the 1992 and 1993 NSWRL Premierships.
Kerry Boustead is an Australian former rugby league footballer who played in the late 1970’s, 1980’s, & early 1990’s. A talented representative wing for Queensland and Australia, at the time he was picked for the national team he was the youngest ever player so selected. A prolific try-scorer, he has been named amongst the nation's finest footballers of the 20th century.
Wilhelm Gustaf "Bill" Heidke (1883–1959) was a pioneer Australian rugby league player. He was a backline player for the Australian national team. He played in four Tests between 1908 and 1910, once as captain.
The 1908–09 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain was the first ever such tour for the newly-formed Australia national rugby league team. The tour was to England and Wales and coincided with the first Wallabies Rugby Union tour of Great Britain, which in hindsight put the Kangaroos in a tough position. The game of rugby league was not yet twelve months old in Australia however a New Zealand side had already toured to Britain, Australia had encountered New Zealand during the 1908 season and the pioneer Australian leaders of the game were keen to match up against the Northern Union founders of the code.
Frank Cheadle was an Australian pioneering rugby league footballer and AIF soldier who fell in World War I. A New South Wales interstate and Australian international representative centre, he was reputedly the first Sydney rugby union player to sign with the new breakaway league in its earliest formative days in late 1907. He played for New South Wales in the first rugby match run by the newly created 'New South Wales Rugby Football League' which had just split away from the established New South Wales Rugby Football Union.
The 1911–12 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain was the second ever Kangaroo tour and was actually a tour by an "Australasian" squad that included four New Zealand players in addition to 24 Australian representatives. It took place over the British winter of 1911–12 and this time, to help promote the game of Rugby league in New Zealand, the Northern Rugby Football Union invited a combined Australian and New Zealand team. They became the first tourists to win the Ashes. and the last to do so on British soil for over half a century. The tour was a success in performance and organisation. Matches were well attended, the squad's touring payments were maintained throughout and the players all shared in a bonus at the tour's end.
The 1921–22 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain was the third ever Kangaroo tour. Again an Australasian side rather than an Australian team alone travelled to Great Britain to contest the Ashes. Coached by Arthur Hennessy and captained by Les Cubitt, the Kangaroos travelled on the RMS Tahiti to England for best-of-three series of Test matches against Great Britain for the Ashes. The tour took place during the 1921–22 Northern Rugby Football Union season and also featured matches against several of the clubs in that competition as well as other representative teams. The tour also involved some degree of player misbehaviour, with one young footballer almost sent home from San Francisco because of all the broken glasses following a drinking session on board the team's ship.
John Gleeson, also known by the nickname of "Dookie", was an Australian former rugby league footballer who played in the 1950s and 1960s. An Australian international and Queensland interstate representative half, he played club football in the country for Chinchilla's team, in the Toowoomba Rugby League for the All Whites club, and in the Brisbane Rugby League for the Wynnum-Manly and Brothers clubs, winning the 1967 BRL premiership with the latter.
The 2014 Anzac Test was a rugby league test match played between Australia and New Zealand at Allianz Stadium in Sydney on 2 May 2014. It was the 15th Anzac Test played between the two nations since the first was played under the Super League banner in 1997. It was also the first Test match played in Sydney since the 2010 Four Nations tournament. A Women's All Stars Match which is the Women's rugby league version of the game was played as the main curtain raiser for the Test, which was won 24-0 by the Women's All Stars.