Leslie Howard Johns (born 1942 in

Newcastle, New South Wales Newcastle, also commonly referred to as Greater Newcastle ( ; ), is a large Metropolitan area, metropolitan area and the second-most-populous such area of New South Wales, Australia. It includes the cities of City of Newcastle, Newcastle and Ci ...

) is a former Australian professional

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 who played in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Club career

Les Johns, of Welsh descent, started his career at Newcastle's Souths club. He then played nine seasons for the Canterbury-Bankstown club between 1963 and 1971. He scored 14 tries and 233 goals and 19 field goals for Canterbury-Bankstown during his career. He has been named among the nation's finest footballers of the 20th century. He was a fullback of considerable flair and on his day could be one of the most brilliant attacking and defensive players in the game. He was forced to retire from rugby league in 1971 due to chronic knee injuries.

Representative career

Johns played sixteen games for the

New South Wales rugby league team The New South Wales rugby league team has represented the Australian state of New South Wales in rugby league football since the sport's beginnings there in 1907. Also known as the Blues due to their sky blue jerseys, the team competes in the an ...

between 1962 and 1969. He represented

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 ...

on fourteen occasions between 1963 and 1969, first touring with the 1963/64

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 ...

. He is listed on the ''Australian Players Register'' as Kangaroo No.382.

Accolades

In February 2008, Johns 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 ARL to celebrate the code's centenary year in Australia. He was made a life member of the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs in 2011. In 2010 Johns was also named in a South Newcastle team of the century.

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johns, Les 1942 births Living people Australia national rugby league team players Australian rugby league coaches Australian rugby league players Australian people of Welsh descent Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs players Clive Churchill Medal winners New South Wales rugby league team players Rugby league fullbacks Rugby league players from Newcastle, New South Wales South Newcastle Lions players 20th-century Australian sportsmen