1990 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain and France


The 1990 Kangaroo Tour was the seventeenth Kangaroo Tour, where the Australian national rugby league team travelled to Europe and played eighteen matches against British and French club and representative rugby league teams, in addition to three Test matches against Great Britain and two Tests against the French. It followed the tour of 1986 and the next was staged in 1994.
This series was the closest the British team came to reclaiming The Ashes since last winning in Australia in 1970. Great Britain won the first Test at Wembley Stadium and in the second Test at Old Trafford in Manchester the match was tied at 10-all until the final minutes when Australia scored a late try to win the game. Australia then went on to easily win the third and deciding Test and retain The Ashes. Australia won both Test series against Great Britain and France, suffering one loss, and remaining undefeated in tour matches against British clubs in a streak stretching back to midway through the 1978 tour.
The 17th Kangaroo tour was televised back to Australia on the Ten Network with commentary provided by Graeme Hughes, David Morrow and sideline reporter Tony Durkin. Also joining the commentary team at various stages, including the Ashes Tests, were then Manly-Warringah coach and former New Zealand national rugby league team and Wigan coach Graham Lowe, and the captain of 1986 Kangaroos, Wally Lewis. The Channel 10 coverage was sponsored by Just Jeans. The ABC televised the tests against France with former Wests Magpies winger and captain Warren Boland providing commentary. Various off-duty players including Mal Meninga, Benny Elias, Mark Geyer, Gary Belcher, Andrew Ettingshausen would also join the Ch.10 team in England as guest commentators or sideline reporters, while Allan Langer co-called the 2nd French test, the last game on the tour, with Boland on the ABC.

The squad's leadership

The team was coached by Bob Fulton making his third Kangaroo Tour, though his first as coach. Mal Meninga was making a record third consecutive tour and his first as captain, while NSW captain Benny Elias was named as the tours vice-captain. As per custom, the Australian Rugby League appointed two tour managers, one each from the Queensland and New South Wales rugby leagues. Former Kangaroo captain Keith Barnes was team manager from NSW, while Les Stokes was the manager from Qld.
Other staff included trainers Shaun McRae, Brian "The Sheriff" Hollis as a trainer/runner, and World Champion boxing trainer Johnny Lewis as team conditioner. Manly-Warringah club doctor Nathan Gibbs, a former South Sydney and Parramatta forward who had retired from playing in 1984 to concentrate on his medical studies, was team doctor. Gibbs made the controversial decision during the selection medicals to rule Kangaroo stalwart and likely captain Wally Lewis unfit for the tour and thus unable to make a third consecutive tour alongside Meninga.

Touring squad

By club

The touring side was represented by 19 New South Welshmen and 9 Queenslanders.
Mal Meninga was making his third Kangaroo Tour having also toured in 1982 and 1986. Greg Alexander, Gary Belcher, Martin Bella, Ben Elias, Des Hasler, Bob Lindner, Steve Roach, Dale Shearer and Paul Sironen were all 1986 tourists. For the rest of the squad it was their first ever Kangaroo Tour.
The Kangaroos went away with four club halfbacks in the squad. Test incumbent Allan Langer; Canberra's former Wallaby and dual premiership winning half Ricky Stuart; and former test halfbacks Des Hasler and Greg Alexander – though Hasler's ability to play almost anywhere in the backline as well as the back row, saw him as the team's utility player while Alexander would play the tour as backup fullback to Gary Belcher, along with two games on the wing : one against Widnes, the final tour game on the English leg; the other the second Test against France, the final game of the tour. Like Terry Lamb in 1986, Alexander was selected for every game on the tour, though unlike Lamb he did not appear in each game after not getting off the bench in the second Ashes Test at Old Trafford. Alexander was the only one of the quartet not to start a game at halfback while on tour, though he did spend some time in his preferred position at various times including the first Test against France when he was forced on after just 15 minutes to replace an ill Ricky Stuart.
1990 was the first Kangaroo Tour to Great Britain and France where the entire playing party came from the NSWRL Premiership and since the 1988 introduction of the Gold Coast Chargers, Brisbane Broncos and Newcastle Knights expanding the competition to 16 clubs with 5 Queensland players coming from Brisbane Broncos, 2 from Canberra Raiders, 1 from Manly Sea Eagles and 1 from Western Suburbs Magpies.
While Meninga was making his third tour, making their second Kangaroo Tours were: Benny Elias, Greg Alexander, Gary Belcher, Martin Bella, Des Hasler, Bob Lindner, Steve Roach, Dale Shearer and Paul Sironen. Each player making their second tour played at least one Test match on the tour.

Great Britain

The Ashes series against Great Britain saw a record aggregate crowd of 133,684 attending the Test series, easily beating the previous record of 114,883 set during the 1948–49 Kangaroo tour and was some 66,130 more than had attended the 1988 Ashes series in Australia. As with the 1982 and 1986 tours, the game against Wigan at Central Park drew the biggest club game attendance of the Kangaroo Tour with a crowd of 24,814.
The tour took place during the 1990–91 Rugby Football League season. Bradford Northern, a regular stop for the tourists, were allegedly left off the tour itinerary after being fined by the RFL for fielding what was virtually a reserve grade side against the touring New Zealand team in 1989.
Of the 13 games the Kangaroos played in England, four of the teams were coached by Australian's while one other was coached by a New Zealander.

Test Venues

The three Ashes series tests took place at the following venues.
1990 was the first tour since 1911–12 not to play at test at one of the larger club grounds such as Central Park, Headingley or Odsal Stadium.

LondonManchesterLeeds
Wembley StadiumOld TraffordElland Road
Capacity: 82,000Capacity: 48,000Capacity: 32,500

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Kangaroos skipper Mal Meninga, a crowd favourite at St Helens after playing with the club in 1984–85 and helping them to win the Premiership and Lancashire Cup, returned to Knowsley Road and scored two tries, including the opening try of the tour. Andrew Ettingshausen came into the side on the wing in place of Dale Shearer who was ruled out with a stomach muscle strain, and crossed for a hat-trick of tries.
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Referee Kevin Allatt sent 4 players off during this game and sin binned 3 others. Sent off 8 minutes before halftime were John Thompson and Mark Carroll, while Ricky Stuart and David Gillespie who was actually sent off for back chatting the referee after the game had finished, followed suit in the second half. Billy Conway, Des Hasler and Dale Shearer were also sent to the sin-bin during the game. In a media interview after the game, Australian coach Bob Fulton said it was something like out of Fawlty Towers and that he couldn't believe that the referee lost control. Fulton also added that the referee had told him before the game that he was 48 years old, causing the Australian coach to think that he should have been home in front of a warm fire with a cup of tea rather than refereeing a professional game of football. With Carroll and Stuart sent off and Shearer in the bin, Australia actually finished the game with only 10 players on the field before Gillespie's post-siren send-off.
In English club football at the time, players sent-off during a match were required to face the RFL judiciary, including those from touring international teams. All three Kangaroos, Carroll, Stuart and Gillespie, escaped suspension from the league who agreed that the send-offs were enough punishment under the circumstances.
Penrith's Brad Fittler, who was aged 18 years and 247 days on the day of the game and just 12 months earlier had made his First Grade debut for the Panthers and had been a member of the Australian Schoolboys side, played in the centres and officially became the youngest ever Kangaroo tourist, also scoring a second half try on debut.
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The match against English power club Wigan was generally regarded as the Kangaroos "4th Test" in England. However, as the team had done a week earlier against St Helens, the Kangaroos won the match easily with Wigan's only score coming from a first half penalty try to Shaun Edwards who was illegally pulled down in a chase to the ball by Bob Lindner. Joe Lydon converted and Wigan led 6–0, but from there the Kangaroos took control of the game. Two tries to Ettingshausen and singles to Michael Hancock and man of the match Gary Belcher saw the Kangaroos race to a 20–6 lead at half time. And hopes of a Wigan comeback were snuffed out early in the second half when Ettingshausen crossed for his second hat-trick of the tour in just two games. Further tries to Brad Mackay and Alfie Langer pushed the final score out to 34–6 and only Mal Meninga's continued poor goal kicking kept the score from being even greater.
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The match against Cumbria in Workington was the 1990 Kangaroos only game against an English county team. As had become the pattern for the midweek game on tour, the game was played in the rain. Starting at lock forward and moving to halfback early in the second half after Ricky Stuart came off after an elbow to the chest, Des Hasler was the official Man of the Match while Dale Shearer signalled his intentions to return to the top team with a hat trick of tries. For the Cumbrians, 20 year old Barrow halfback Dean Marwood was their best player using a clever kicking game to continually turn the Kangaroos defence around. He also kicked two field goals which he later told TV broadcaster The Sports Channel helped settle his nerves. In a pre-game interview, Cumbrian coach Phil Kitchin told The Sports Channel that he'd had trouble even getting players together for a training run before this midweek game mainly due to the number of injuries eligible Cumbrian players had in the previous weekends, though he was finally able to string a side together for three training sessions. Cumbria even lost former Warrington hooker Mark Roskell on the morning of the game with a virus, his place was taken on the afternoon of the game by Whitehaven's Gary Mounsey.
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During the game against Leeds at Headingley, the home side led the Kangaroos 10–6 at half time thanks to tries from former All Blacks fullback John Gallagher and Great Britain forward Paul Dixon who was awarded a try after what appeared to be a Leeds knock-on. This was the first time since Hull F.C. led the Kangaroos 7–0 at The Boulevard during game 12 of the 1982 Kangaroo tour that a British team had led the tourists at half time of a match. An all-in brawl in the first half left Australian five-eight Laurie Daley with a broken bone in his right hand leaving him in doubt for the upcoming first test at Wembley Stadium
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