John Brass (born 7 October 1946) is an Australian former

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 ...

and

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

footballer – a dual-code international. He made twelve international representative rugby union appearances with 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 ...

from 1966 to 1968 and six representative rugby league appearances for the

Kangaroos Kangaroos are marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use, the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern grey ...

in 1970 and 1975, as national captain on one occasion.

Background

John Brass was born in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

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 ...

, Australia

Rugby union career

His junior football was with the South Coogee juniors. He was educated at

Sydney Boys High School Sydney Boys High School ('SBHS'), otherwise known as Sydney High School ('SHS') or simply High, is an Australian government-funded single-sex academically selective secondary day school for boys, located at Moore Park, New South Wales, a s ...

, graduating in 1964 and went on to play first grade rugby with the

Randwick rugby club Randwick District Rugby Union Football Club, also known as the Galloping Greens, is an Australian rugby union club based in Randwick City Council, a Local Government Area in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. The team competes in the Sydney premier ...

in their premiership winning sides of 1965 to 1967. Brass credits watching Randwick scrumhalf prodigy

Ken Catchpole Kenneth William Catchpole (21 June 1939 – 21 December 2017) was an Australian rugby union footballer. A state and national representative half-back, he played twenty-seven matches for Australia, thirteen as captain. Catchpole rose through th ...

in action at the Sydney Sports Ground in 1959 as the early inspiration for his wanting to play rugby. He made his debut for New South Wales against Queensland in 1966 at the age of 19, and nine days later played for New South Wales against the touring British Lions. Injured for the first Test against the Lions, he then debuted 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 ...

in the infamous 2nd Test in Brisbane, which saw an injury-hit Australia defeated 31-nil. He then won national selection with the

for the coveted

1966–67 Australia rugby union tour of Britain, Ireland and France Between October 1966 and March 1967 the Australia national rugby union team – the Wallabies – conducted a world tour on which they played five Tests and thirty-one minor tour matches. Under the captaincy of John Thornett they toured UK, Irel ...

, playing in all five Tests and in 32 of the 36 tour matches. Partnering with veteran centre

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

through all the internationals, Brass scored his first Test try for Australia against Scotland at Murrayfield. He played with in the historic Wallaby victories over Wales and England, and scored his second Test try at Twickenham against the English. In the 1968 season, he played alongside Randwick centre Phil Smith in the 1st

Bledisloe Cup The Bledisloe Cup is an annual rugby union competition between the national teams of Australia's Wallabies and New Zealand's All Blacks that has been contested since the 1930s. The frequency that the competition is held has varied, as has the n ...

Test 11–27 loss to New Zealand and the 11–10 victory over France in Sydney and was selected for the 1968 short tour of Scotland and Ireland, playing in the 3–10 defeat to Ireland and the 3–9 loss to Scotland. After a disappointing 1968 season for Australian rugby Union, Brass announced he was switching codes, after being offered a record contract to play Rugby League with Eastern Suburbs. Brass would later reflect fondly on his amateur rugby touring days, telling film maker Theo Clark in 2016: "Overall, the encompassing thing was just what a wonderful experience it was – a dollar-a-day stuff but, you know, some people would say a dollar-a-day and we were probably overpaid."

Rugby league career

Switching to rugby league in 1969 he joined the Eastern Suburbs ("Roosters") club on a then record contract of A$30,000 pa. In 1970, he was made captain of the Roosters' first grade side and was selected for

in the interstate series against Queensland. He represented Australia in rugby league in all three Tests against Great Britain in 1970. His international rugby league debut against Great Britain in Brisbane on 6 June 1970 alongside Phil Hawthorne saw them together become Australia's 32nd and 33rd dual code rugby internationals. For family reasons, he made himself unavailable for the

1972 Rugby League World Cup The sixth Rugby League World Cup was held in France in October and November 1972. Australia started as the favourites to retain the trophy they had won just two years previously. New Zealand had beaten all three of the other nations in 1971 a ...

and the 1973

Kangaroo Tour Kangaroo Tour is the name given to Australia national rugby league team tours of Great Britain and France, tours to New Zealand and the one-off tour to Papua New Guinea (1991). The first Kangaroo Tour was in 1908. Traditionally, Kangaroo Tours too ...

but he was selected for the

1975 World Cup series It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

and captained Australia to victory in a game against New Zealand in that campaign. He is listed on the ''Australian Players Register'' as Kangaroo No.440. He was part of the Roosters' premiership winning sides of

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; ...

and

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

, kicking two goals in the 1974 Grand Final and scoring two tries in the 1975 decider. During the

1976 NSWRFL season The 1976 New South Wales Rugby League premiership, New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership was the 69th season of Sydney's professional rugby league football competition, Australia's first. Twelve teams, including six of 1908's foundat ...

, Brass played as a for Eastern Suburbs in their unofficial

1976 World Club Challenge The 1976 World Club Challenge was an unofficial trial of what would later become the World Club Challenge concept, with the 1975 NSWRFL season's premiers, Eastern Suburbs hosting the 1975–76 Northern Rugby Football League season's Premiershi ...

match against British champions St. Helens in Sydney.

Post playing

Brass coached the Tweed Heads Seagulls in the Group 18 competition in 1977–78. He had a long career in shopping centre management. In 1995 he was asked to join the board of

Super League Super League (also known as the Betfred Super League for sponsorship reasons, and legally Super League Europe Ltd.) is a professional rugby league competition, and the highest level of the British rugby league system, which consists of twelve t ...

and remained on the Board when the truce between the warring factions was called in 1997 and the

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

was formed. He remained on the board until 2005, when he was replaced by

Gorden Tallis Gorden James Tallis (born 27 July 1973), also known by the nickname of "Raging Bull" for his on-field aggression, is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s. He is currently a commentator and ...

References

External links

''Sometimes the Best Ever: The Story of the 1966/7 Wallabies'' (Part 1)
documentary by Theo Clark Media, 2017 (YouTube)
''Randwick and the 1966/7 Wallaby Tour''
documentary by Theo Clark Media, 2017 (YouTube)

Sources

* Whiticker, Alan (2004) ''Captaining the Kangaroos'', New Holland, Sydney {{DEFAULTSORT:Brass, John 1946 births Living people Australia international rugby union players Australia national rugby league team captains Australia national rugby league team players Australian rugby league administrators Australian rugby league players Australian rugby union players Dual-code rugby internationals People educated at Sydney Boys High School Rugby league players from Sydney Rugby union players from Sydney Rugby league centres Rugby union centres Sydney Roosters players Sydney Roosters captains Randwick DRUFC players New South Wales rugby union team players New South Wales rugby league team players 20th-century Australian sportsmen