Harry Edgar "Ginger" Nicholls (21 January 1900 — 1 April 1978) was a New Zealand international
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.
Biography
Nicholls was raised in
Petone
Petone (Māori language, Māori: ''Pito-one'') is a large suburb of Lower Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand. It stands at the southern end of the Hutt Valley, on the northern shore of Wellington Harbour. Europeans first settled in Petone in Januar ...
and attended
Wellington College Wellington College may refer to:
New Zealand
* Wellington College, Wellington, New Zealand
* Wellington College of Education, now the Faculty of Education of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
* Wellington Girls' College, Wellington, N ...
. His elder brother
Harold was an All Black five-eighth, as was younger brother
Mark
Mark may refer to:
In the Bible
* Mark the Evangelist (5–68), traditionally ascribed author of the Gospel of Mark
* Gospel of Mark, one of the four canonical gospels and one of the three synoptic gospels
Currencies
* Mark (currency), a currenc ...
, a member of the
1924–25 "Invincibles".
A diminutive halfback, standing at 165 cm, Nicholls debuted for
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...
at the age of 17. He won All Blacks selection over experienced halfback
Edward Roberts for the opening Test against the visiting 1921 Springboks, sharing his debut with his younger brother, and in a winning cause performed well enough to receive the outstanding back award from the selection panel. Despite this, Nicholls was replaced by Roberts for the remaining internationals and wasn't capped again, although he did feature on the
1922 tour of New South Wales. He also captained the All Blacks in a home match against the
NSW Waratahs
The New South Wales Waratahs ( or ;), often referred to as the Waratahs, are an Australian professional rugby union team based in Sydney that represents the majority of New South Wales in the Super Rugby Pacific competition. The Waratahs play ...
in 1923. He went on the Invincibles tour as a press correspondent.
See also
*
List of New Zealand national rugby union players
, 1223 players have played rugby union for New Zealand's national team, known since 1905 as the All Blacks. The first New Zealand representative match was played in May 1884 against a Wellington XV before the New Zealand team departed for their t ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicholls, Ginger
1900 births
1978 deaths
New Zealand rugby union players
New Zealand international rugby union players
Rugby union halfbacks
Rugby union players from Lower Hutt
Wellington rugby union players
People educated at Wellington College, Wellington
People from Petone