Robin John Heming (11 December 1932 – 7 January 2023) was an Australian Lock/ No.8

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...

player who played 21 tests for Australia between 1961 and 1967. Born in

Namatanai Namatanai is a town on the island province of New Ireland in Papua New Guinea. It is the second largest settlement on the island and connected to the largest and provincial capital of Kavieng (264 km to the north-west) by the Boluminski H ...

New Ireland New Ireland may refer to: Geography * New Ireland (island), large island in the state of Papua New Guinea * New Ireland Province, administrative division of Papua New Guinea Politics * United Ireland, the proposed unification of the islan ...

off the then Australian

Territory of New Guinea The Territory of New Guinea was an Australian-administered United Nations trust territory on the island of New Guinea from 1914 until 1975. In 1949, the Territory and the Territory of Papua were established in an administrative union by the nam ...

(now

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

). He was educated at

North Sydney Boys High School North Sydney Boys High School (abbreviated as NSBHS) is a government-funded, single-sex, academically selective secondary day school for boys, located at Crows Nest, on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. In 2022, Nor ...

and qualified as an optometrist at what is now

The University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensiv ...

. He practised for many years on

The Corso ''The Corso'' is one of the main streets and a pedestrian mall in Manly. It connects the Manly ferry wharf to Manly Beach on the Pacific Ocean side of the Manly peninsula. History There has long been a track between Manly Cove and Ocean Be ...

at Manly.

Rugby career

After narrowly missing qualification for the Melbourne Olympics as a swimmer in 1956, Heming joined the Manly Marlins rugby club, and made the first grade side in his first season, playing at No.8. He went on to play 132 first grade games for Manly between 1956-1969. He was picked for the 1957-58 Wallaby trials, and debuted for the

NSW Waratahs The New South Wales Waratahs ( or ;), referred to as the Waratahs, are an Australian professional rugby union team representing the majority of New South Wales in the Super Rugby competition. The Riverina and other southern parts of the stat ...

in 1957. Establishing his optometry practice that year made him unavailable for the 1958 NZ tour. Heming debuted for the Australia v Fiji 2nd Test Sydney in 1961, and went on the short tour of South Africa later that year, and played the first visiting French side in Australia at the end of the season. He played in the Sydney Test against the All Blacks in 1962, and toured New Zealand that year and in

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...

. He went again to South Africa in 1963, and went on the 5th Wallaby tour of the British Isles, France and Canada in 1966/7. He also played in the historic 1965 home series against the Springboks in 1965 (Australia's first series win over South Africa), and against the visiting British Lions in 1966. He retired from international rugby after the 1967 French Test in Paris on the 1966-7 tour. Heming is often judged to be the greatest lineout jumper of the amateur era. Wallaby captain

John Thornett John Edward Thornett, MBE (30 March 1935 – 4 January 2019) was an Australian rugby union player, who played 37 Tests for Australia between 1955 and 1967 and made an additional 77 representative match appearances. He captained Australia in 16 ...

considered him part of a talented core of "world's best players in their positions" that helped his side to a series of historic victories in the 1960s. Teammate and long serving national coaching director

Dick Marks Richard James Pickett Marks, (born 6 September 1942) is an Australian former rugby union footballer and noted administrator.Jack Pollard; ''Australian Rugby: The Game and the Players''; Ironbark; 1994 He played 17 Tests for Australia between 19 ...

considered him the best "individual jumper" he'd ever seen. Heming died on 7 January 2023, at the age of 90.Rob Heming
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References

External links

Rob Heming Story
Classic Wallabies/Theo Clark Media, 2021 (YouTube)
''Sometimes the Best Ever: The Story of the 1966/7 Wallabies'' (Part 1)
Theo Clark Media, 2017 (YouTube) {{DEFAULTSORT:Heming, Rob 1932 births 2023 deaths Australian rugby union players Australia international rugby union players People from Namatanai People educated at North Sydney Boys High School Rugby union locks Australian optometrists Papua New Guinean people of Australian descent Manly RUFC players