Neville Cottrell (1927–2014) 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. A

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

and

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representative forward, he played fourteen Test matches for Australia, including two as captain.

Early life

Cottrell was born in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

, Queensland, and attended

St Laurence's College St Laurence's College (known colloquially as Lauries) is an independent Catholic primary and secondary school for boys, located in South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Founded by the Congregation of Christian Brothers in 1915. the school is a m ...

.Howell pp130 He initially played for the Brisbane West End rugby side in "B" grade competitions before being invited to join the Brisbane YMCA team in the

Queensland Premier The premier of Queensland is the head of government in the Australian state of Queensland. By convention the premier is the leader of the party with a parliamentary majority in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. The premier is appointed ...

competition. Coached by former Wallaby hooker Edward Bonis, Cottrell was quickly mentored and made a rapid rise to the representative level.

Representative rugby career

Cottrell made his state representative debut for

in 1947 against a touring

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 ...

side. Although, he was deemed too young to make the 1947–48 tour to the British Isles, by 1949 he had established himself as Australia's number one hooker. That year, he played again for Queensland against the New Zealand Māori and made his national representative debut with three Test appearances against the Māori visitors. In 1949, he toured with Trevor Allan's Wallabies to New Zealand, where they won the

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 ...

for the first time in New Zealand and achieved eleven wins from twelve games on tour. Cottrell played in both Tests and seven matches. When Allan was injured in 1950, Cottrell was picked to captain the Wallabies in a home Test series against the visiting British Lions, though both matches were lost. Cottrell went on to make seven more Test appearances: three in a 1951 home series against the All Blacks under the captaincy of Keith Winning, and four in 1952 against Fiji (two matches) and New Zealand (two matches) under John Solomon.

Accolades

Cottrell was the first hooker to captain Australia, and upon Cottrell's retirement, only Eddie Bonis, who played in the 1930s, had made more Test appearances at hooker. Howell quotes the Australian sports journalist

Jack Pollard Jack Ernest Pollard OAM (31 July 1926 – 25 May 2002) was an Australian sports journalist, writer and cricket historian. Early life Born in Sydney on 31 July 1926, Pollard began his journalism career in 1943 as a copy boy at Sydney's ''Daily ...

who wrote : .

Published references

* Howell, Max (2005) ''Born to Lead - Wallaby Test Captains'', Celebrity Books, Auckland NZ

Footnotes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cottrell, Nev 1927 births 2014 deaths Australia national rugby union team captains Australian rugby union players Australia international rugby union players Rugby union players from Brisbane Rugby union hookers Souths Rugby players People educated at St Laurence's College Queensland rugby union team players 20th-century Australian sportsmen