KeithQuinnRugby
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Are there any more accolades coming the way of this Rugbyman? (captured here by Andy Herraud's fine cartoon in 2012)
18 August 2015
This cartoon was commissioned by Billy Graham and the Naenae Youth Charitable Trust in 2012. It was done by Lower Hutt's Andy Heraud.
Comments 1
The local Illawarra team played the All Blacks and a young New Zealander called Colin Meads, aged 20, made his AB debut. 15 seasons later he retired as one of the greats!
GAINSFORD, JOHN
Western Province and South Africa
33 internationals for Sth Africa 1960–67
One of South Africa’s greatest players, John Gainsford played in what was then a record number of internationals for a centre in the Springbok colours.
A big, strong-running centre with positive instincts for attack, he made his first-class debut as a 19-year-old, before joining the Junior Springboks for their 1959 tour of Argentina. He came into the South African test team in 1960, when he appeared in the only test against the Scotland touring team and in all four games the same season against the All Blacks. Thereafter, until 1967, only injury kept him out of test teams.
In his seven seasons as a Springbok, Gainsford earned world-wide respect. After only five years he became the highest-capped South African player, beating the old mark of 28 tests, held by Johan Claassen, in the third test at Christchurch on the 1965 New Zealand tour. This was a feat which he celebrated by scoring two brilliant tries as the Springboks came back from 5–16 at half-time to score a notable victory.
At the time of his retirement, after the 1967 tour by France, Gainsford was also South Africa’s top test try-scorer, with eight tries. Both his appearances and try tally records were broken in subsequent years, but it took until 2001 before Japie Mulder passed his record for being South Africa’s highest-capped centre.
Who was the first All Black captain to be red or yellow carded in a test match?
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30 August 2015 (8 years ago)
Mooloomagic
Keith, did you see Ron Jarden play? His era is before my time but as I was born in 1955 out of curiosity I read the 1956 Alamanck recently and I see that Ron scored 30 tries in just 16 matches in 1955 which is amazing and no one since has achieved that in a calendar year . I would love your thoughts and impressions on Ron Jarden who must have been one hell of a footballer
Dave