Ross Lindsay Birrell (17 December 1948 - 16 March 2015) was an Australian professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

footballer who played for the

South Sydney Rabbitohs The South Sydney Rabbitohs are a professional Australian rugby league club based in Redfern, New South Wales, Redfern, a suburb of inner-southern Sydney, New South Wales. They participate in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership and are ...

Biography

Born in 1948, Birrell started out as

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...

player and toured overseas with the Emerging Wallabies team, before making the switch to rugby league. Birrell was a member of South Sydney's first-grade team from 1972 to 1975, playing as a centre, fullback and winger. Occasionally he served as the team's goalkicker and amassed 17-points in a win over Balmain in 1972. During his time at South Sydney he also had a stint in England with

Hull Kingston Rovers Hull Kingston Rovers are a professional rugby league club based in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England, that competes in the Super League, the top tier of British rugby league. The club has won five league championships, and one Challenge ...

. In 1976 he left South Sydney to coach the Wagga Magpies. Birrell died from cancer in 2015, at the age of 66. A real estate agent, he was the founder of Thornton Realty in

Maitland Maitland is an English and Scottish surname. It arrived in Britain after the Norman conquest of 1066. There are two theories about its source. It is either a nickname reference to "bad temper/disposition" (Old French, ''Maltalent''; Anglo Norm ...

, which he had established in 1996.

References

External links

Ross Birrell
at Rugby League project {{DEFAULTSORT:Birrell, Ross 1949 births 2015 deaths Australian rugby league players South Sydney Rabbitohs players Rugby league centres Rugby league fullbacks Rugby league wingers Hull Kingston Rovers players