Richard Murray Tooth (21 September 1929 – 5 August 2020) was an 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 ...

footballer of the 1950s. He represented the

Wallabies A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and som ...

in ten Test matches and nineteen total appearances and was Australian captain on two occasions. He resided at St Andrew's College while studying at

Sydney University The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

. His club rugby was played with the

Sydney University Football Club The Sydney University Football Club, founded in 1863, is the oldest club now playing rugby union in Australia, although this date is disputed by historian Tom Hickie who argues that it was 1865. Sydney Uni was a member of the inaugural Sydney ...

and later with

Randwick Randwick is a suburb in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Randwick is located 6 kilometres south-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government ar ...

in the

Shute Shield The Shute Shield, currently known as the Charter Hall Shute Shield, is a semi-professional rugby union competition in Sydney, Australia. It is the premier club competition in New South Wales. The Shute Shield is awarded to the winning team fro ...

. He practised as an orthopaedic surgeon and was a sports medicine pioneer.

Early life and education

Tooth was born in

Bombala Bombala is a town in the Monaro, New South Wales, Monaro region of far southern New South Wales, Australia, in Snowy Monaro Regional Council. It is approximately south-southwest of the state capital, Sydney, and south of the town of Cooma, Ne ...

and his family relocated to

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...

when he was seven years of age.Howell pp153-4 He attended Newcastle Boys' High School and represented the school in rugby league, swimming (member of the 1943 Farlow Cup winning team) and athletics (member of the 1943 winning teams, CHS Juvenile Shield, Kerr and Lintott Cups). An all-round schoolboy athlete, he swam in the summer with the Cooks Hill Surf Life Saving Club. While studying science at the University of Sydney and domiciled at St Andrew's College, Tooth played inter-collegiate rugby and grade rugby for the University. In 1949 he switched to medicine and at the same time cemented a spot in Sydney's University's 2nd grade side. From there he was selected in an Australian Universities XV who met a New Zealand Universities side for a three match series in 1949.

Representative career

In 1950 he was a regular first grader at University, was coached by former Wallaby Joe Kraefft and played against a visiting British Isles side. In 1951 he was selected for

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

and made his debut for

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

with three Test appearances against the

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks, is the representative men's national team in the sport of rugby union for the nation of New Zealand, which is considered the country's national sport. Famed for th ...

at five-eighth marking the experienced All Black fly-half Laurie Haig. He focussed on his studies for the next couple of years but in 1954 was back in the national side in a series of games against the visiting

Fijians Fijians () are a nation and ethnic group Indigenous peoples of Oceania, native to Fiji, who speak Fijian language, Fijian and English language, English and share a common history and culture. Fijians, or ''iTaukei'', are the major indigenous ...

playing in one Test at fullback and another at centre. In 1955 he was selected in the Wallaby touring party to New Zealand captained by his University colleague John Solomon. He appeared in twelve of the thirteen tour games at either fullback or fly-half and had a sound tour. In 1957 he captained the Wallabies on two occasions when the All Blacks toured Australia. It was a surprise when at the end of that season and as the current Australian captain, he was not selected in the 27-man Wallaby side to tour Britain, Ireland and France. Howell reports that his omission defied explanation given his positional versatility but Tooth took it in his stride and travelled himself to the United Kingdom at that time to continue his medical studies. While there he captained the Rosslyn Park club side in England, played for Middlesex and while a resident at a Belfast Hospital was selected in the invitational side the North of Ireland Wolfhounds.

Orthopaedic Surgeon

Tooth helped pioneer

arthroscopic surgery Arthroscopy (also called arthroscopic or keyhole surgery) is a minimally invasive surgery, surgical procedure on a joint in which an examination and sometimes treatment of damage is performed using an arthroscope, an endoscope that is inserted in ...

in Australia. In 1971, he performed the first full knee reconstruction in Australia; his patient was

Johnny Warren John Norman Warren, MBE, OAM (17 May 1943 – 6 November 2004) was an Australian soccer player, coach, administrator, writer and broadcaster. He was known as ''Captain Socceroo'' for his passionate work to promote the game in Australia. The a ...

, captain of the Socceroos who went on to captain them to the 1974 World Cup.

Family life

In 1956 he married Marianne, the elder daughter of the Consul-General for Sweden, Ivar Stenstrom. Their daughter,

Liane Tooth Liane Marianne Tooth, OAM (born 13 March 1962 in Sydney, New South Wales) is a retired field hockey forward, who twice won the gold medal with the Australian Women's Hockey Team, best known as the ''Hockeyroos'', at the Summer Olympics: in Seo ...

, is a double Olympic gold medallist. His nephew Tim Walsh was a first grade rugby player with Leeds Carnegie and made a number of representative appearances for Australia at

Rugby Sevens Rugby sevens (commonly known simply as sevens, and originally seven-a-side rugby) is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven-minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves. R ...

References

Sources

* Howell, Max (2005) ''Born to Lead – Wallaby Test Captains'', Celebrity Books, Auckland NZ {{DEFAULTSORT:Tooth, Dick 1929 births 2020 deaths Australian rugby union players Australia international rugby union players Australia national rugby union team captains People from Bombala, New South Wales People educated at Newcastle Boys' High School Rugby union players from Newcastle, New South Wales Rugby union fly-halves Sydney University Football Club players Randwick DRUFC players New South Wales rugby union team players 20th-century Australian sportsmen