Les Cubitt (31 October 1892 – 10 November 1968) was an Australian representative

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 ...

player, a , or whose club career was with Eastern Suburbs and the

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. He is considered one of the nation's finest footballers of the 20th century.

Club career

Cubitt commenced his club career at just eighteen years of age with

playing alongside his older brother Charlie Cubitt in the 1911 Grand Final loss to Eastern Suburbs. In 1913, Cubitt joined Eastern Suburbs where he played for the next nine seasons winning a premiership in

1913 Events January * January – Joseph Stalin travels to Vienna to research his ''Marxism and the National Question''. This means that, during this month, Stalin, Hitler, Trotsky and Tito are all living in the city. * January 3 &ndash ...

. Cubitt was the younger brother of the rugby league footballer; Charlie Cubitt. During the beginning of his career, Cubitt was better known for his goal-kicking skills, however, he transitioned into more of a try-scorer later in his career. He was an adept side-stepper and was also very proficient at selling fake passes to opposing defenders.

Representative career

He was first selected for

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in 1911 but had to wait until the end of the

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to make his national representative debut. He played in the centres in all four Tests of

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's first tour of

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in 1919 scoring four tries in the tests and 17 tries in the last three tour matches. He is listed on the ''Australian Players Register'' as Kangaroo No. 95. He was selected as captain of the 1921-22 "Australasian" Kangaroos which had two New Zealanders in the squad. He concealed a serious knee injury which he aggravated on the tour in England and which led to his eventual retirement in 1922.

Accolades

In February 2008, Cubitt was named in the list of Australia's ''100 Greatest Players'' (1908–2007) which was commissioned by the

NRL 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 ...

and

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to celebrate the code's centenary year in Australia. Glebe RLFC 1911

Sources

* Whiticker, Alan & Hudson, Glen (2006) ''The Encyclopedia of Rugby League Players'', Gavin Allen Publishing, Sydney

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cubitt, Les 1892 births 1968 deaths Australasia rugby league team players Australia national rugby league team players Australian rugby league players Glebe rugby league players New South Wales rugby league team players Rugby league centres Rugby league five-eighths Rugby league players from Sydney Sydney Roosters players 20th-century Australian sportsmen