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MY TAKE ON SOME OF THE RUGBY NEWS STORIES WHICH COME INTO MY WORLD.
In 112 years of All Black history who have been and who is the current All Black's record test try-scorer?
1 June 2015
Ever wondered just many many - or how few - All Blacks have been our record test try-scorers? You might be surprised. In 112 years of the All Black story there have only been seven test try-scoring record holders. And one old star held the record for 63 years! And can you recall who's the current scorer of most All Black test tries? Check the keithquinnrugby.com records here. Read more »
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Our first look at what all Rugby Men and Women would love to have in their possession - in 2016!
15 May 2015
Here's how an Olympic Rugby Gold Medal will look for those winners of the Men's and Women's competitions in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. They are a simple design - you might even say not particularly artistic - but they will be so keenly fought for! Read more »
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Pictures from a World Tour 2015 #2
6 May 2015
One of the key reasons for my tour to Europe and North America this year was to visit and pay homage to World War I battlefields and to the rugbymen who died there. We did that for sure, but not before meeting our guide and having lunch at a very appropriate place for New Zealand war watchers in Belgium. Read more »
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Obituary; For an Irish star who played v New Zealand way back.
22 April 2015
Here's an obituary about an old Irish star forward who will be much missed. I met Jimmy McCarthy a number of times. Not only was he a lovely, friendly bloke but the Irish players of modern times loved him too. He was seemingly always close to the national team. This report on his death I reprint from the Irish Rugby Football Union's official website; Read more »
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Don't you just love this picture of the two old locking buddies; Nev MacEwan and Colin Meads! (Taken while training before an All Black tiral match in 1959.
Selected for the All Blacks in 3 different test positions; a top player who led a mixed life.
10 March 2015
Special guest writer Adam Julian of Wellington delivers here a very fair profile on the rugby life and post-rugby life of 78 year old Ian Neven MacEwan. Read more »
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The 2014-15 New Zealand 7s team
4 March 2015
NEW ZEALAND SEVENS TEAMS IN THE 2014-15 SERIES (In brackets; are the Keith Quinn performance ratings for each player out of 10 so far this season) Read more »
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Every day there is Rugby History 31 August 1971
Click to show The date of death for an AB who took his farm horse off to war in Palestine.
James 'Buster' Barrett, in his time the lightest AB forward, went to WWI in 1915 with the Auckland Mounted Rifles division. His horse was trained for war while away but never saw any action and never returned.
A-Z of Rugby
Click to show GALLAGHER, JOHN
GALLAGHER, JOHN
Wellington and New Zealand
18 internationals for N. Zealand 1987–89
One of the rugby union world's most brilliant attacking fullbacks of the 1980s but who at the peak of his rugby union powers, was lost to rugby league.
John Gallagher was a young fullback living in London who decided to accept an offer of a rugby-playing holiday in Wellington, New Zealand in 1984. By 1986 his life had changed. He had decided to stay in New Zealand, he had embarked on a career with the police force, and late in the year he was included with the New Zealand All Blacks for their tour to France. He was very much a second-stringer on that tour, playing twice at centre.
It was a different matter in 1987. Given the confidence of being chosen as the number one fullback for the first Rugby World Cup, Gallagher’s speed and brilliant intrusions from fullback became a powerful weapon in the All Black armoury.
In his second test match, against Fiji at Christchurch, Gallagher scorched in for four tries (equalling the then New Zealand record for one test match) and helped make many more as the All Blacks raced out to a 74–13 win.
Gallagher played five of the All Blacks’ games at the World Cup, including the final, and was seen as one of the tournament’s most brilliant players. That kind of form followed him through 1988 and 1989, on four other All Black tours.
In May 1990, Gallagher, by then firmly ensconced as one of the country’s most popular sporting heroes, suddenly announced that he was heading for rugby league. The news sent shock waves through New Zealand rugby circles. There was at first disbelief and a little scorn from some, although soon emotions quietened and sensible Kiwis wished him luck in his new career.
The departure of Gallagher to rugby league, along with fellow All Blacks Frano Botica, John Schuster and Matthew Ridge, awakened New Zealanders to the realisation that their national game was not the only one on the sporting horizon. The departure of ‘Kipper’ Gallagher also left an extremely hard-to-fill gap in the All Black backline. No player would be quite like the flying redhead from the Oriental-Rongotai club in Wellington.
Gallagher signed with the Leeds rugby league club after 18 tests for the All Blacks. He scored 13 tries in tests, and in one game, in Japan in 1987, he scored 30 points. His signing fee was reported to be $NZ1.3 million (at the time about £420,000), well in excess of the previous reported world record fee.
10 Questions to well known sporting people
Today's KQ Rugby Quiz
Who said; 'Rugby League is a simple game played by simple people. Rugby Union is a complex game played by wankers?'
What do you think?
Click here to show the answer.