Alex Toolis (born 31 March 1992) is a retired Australian

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

player. His twin brother,

Ben Ben is frequently used as a shortened version of the given names Benjamin, Benedict, Bennett, Benson or Ebenezer, and is also a given name in its own right. Ben meaning "son of" is also found in Arabic as ''Ben'' (dialectal Arabic) or ''bin ...

, played international rugby for

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

Early life

Toolis was born in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

, Australia.

Rugby career

Toolis arrived in Edinburgh, August 2013 after competing in the

Queensland Premier Rugby Queensland Premier Rugby is a semi professional club rugby union competition in Queensland, Australia. Nine clubs play in the competition, eight clubs are from Brisbane, and one club is from Gold Coast.The premiership has been contested in i ...

competition playing for GPS Old Boys, where he helped GPS reach consecutive Premier Grade finals. He was also in the ARU's National Academy where he played in the IRB Pacific Nations Cup with his twin brother,

. He was also selected to play for the Queensland 'A' side in the IRB Pacific Nations Cup. In November 2013, both twins were signed by

London Irish London Irish RFC is a professional rugby union club that most recently competed in the Premiership Rugby, Premiership, the top division of rugby union in England. The club also participated in the European Rugby Champions Cup, European Champion ...

on a short-term loan from

Edinburgh Rugby Edinburgh Rugby (formerly Edinburgh Reivers, Edinburgh Gunners) is one of the two professional rugby union teams from Scotland. The club competes in the United Rugby Championship, along with the Glasgow Warriors, its oldest rival. Edinburgh play ...

. Toolis made his debut on 17 November 2013 against the

Northampton Saints Northampton Saints (officially Northampton Rugby Football Club) is a professional rugby union club from Northampton, England. The club plays in Premiership Rugby, England's top division of rugby union. It was formed in 1880 as "Northampton St. ...

at Madjeski Stadium in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, where he started in the second row with his brother. This was the first time that

had a pair of twins starting at the lock position. He played one match on loan with

Glasgow Warriors The Glasgow Warriors are a professional rugby union side from Scotland. The team plays in the United Rugby Championship league and in the European Professional Club Rugby tournaments. In the 2014–15 season they won the Pro12 title and beca ...

against Munster during their Pro12 title-winning 2014–15 season. He played alongside Ben in the second row for the first time for

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

in the away win over Benetton in September 2015. They were the first brothers to do so since Tim and Sep Visser in 2012, and the first set of twins to do so for the club in the professional era. They were the first twins to start a match together for the home side in Scotland in the professional era, in January 2016 win over

SU Agen Lot-et-Garonne Sporting Union Agen Lot-et-Garonne (), commonly referred to as SU Agen, Agen () or SUALG, is a French professional rugby union club based in Agen, Lot-et-Garonne that competes in the Pro D2, France's second division of rugby. Founded in 1908, Ag ...

. Toolis signed a two-year deal for the Rebels to return to Australia for the 2017 Super Rugby season; however, he received a serious neck injury which ruled him out for a year. Alex was forced to retire through several repeated injuries. In Dec 2021 Alex took up the role of Academy and Performance Manager at Boroughmuir Rugby Club, in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he is responsible for driving, developing and delivery of a rugby performance programme to support youth development from Micros (Under-5s) through to Colts (U18s) and their transition to senior rugby, with an emphasis on players achieving their best, whether at club, region or national levels. In his first season the Boroughmuir U18s went on to win the Scottish National Club Cup and two of the squad, Jerry Blyth-Lafferty and Liam McConnell played for the Scotland U18s Team, with Liam also being selected as Captain, a strong start to a new career in club rugby player development.

References

External links

* http://www.edinburghrugby.org/edinburgh-rugby/player/alex-toolis {{DEFAULTSORT:Toolis, Alex Edinburgh Rugby players Glasgow Warriors players 1992 births Living people Rugby union players from Brisbane Australian rugby union players Rugby union locks Australian expatriate rugby union players in Scotland Australian expatriate rugby union players in England London Irish players Melbourne Rising players Melbourne Rebels players Australian expatriate rugby union players in Japan Kurita Water Gush Akishima players London Scottish F.C. players People educated at Marist College Ashgrove Blagnac Rugby players Australian expatriate rugby union players in France 21st-century Australian sportsmen