Chris McKivat

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Australian national rugby league captain

Olympic medal record
Men's Rugby union
Gold medal – first place 1908 London Team competition

Christopher Hobart McKivat [alternatively spelt as McKivatt] (born November 27, 1879 - died May 4, 1947) was an Australian rugby league and rugby union player - a dual code rugby international. He represented the Wallabies in over 20 Tests and tour matches from 1907 to 1909 and the Kangaroos in 5 Tests from 1910 to 1912.

Unique in history

He captained the 1908 Summer Olympics gold medal winning Wallaby side and was the eighth captain of the Australian national rugby league team leading them in all 3 Tests of the 1911-12 tour. McKivat was unique in history as the only man to captain his country to touring victory in two different rugby codes.

He is unique in Australian rugby history as the only man to captain both the national rugby union and rugby league teams.

Rugby union career

He was born in Cumnock, New South Wales and played country & country representative rugby union until he was 26. He was a tactically brilliant half-back and a great on-field leader of both forwards and backs.

He came to Sydney to join the Glebe Rugby Club in 1905, was selected for New South Wales that year and then the Wallabies in 1907 playing three Tests against the All Blacks. He was on the first Wallaby tour of England in 1908-1909 and captained the side in 17 tour matches plus the historic gold medal winning match against England in the 1908 London Olympics.

Rugby league career

He crossed over to the professional code joining the Glebe Rugby League Club as a 30 year old veteran in 1910. He made his rugby league international debut that same year in the First Test in Sydney on 18 June 1910 against Great Britain. Four of his former Wallaby team mates also debuted that day John Barnett, Bob Craig, Jack Hickey and Charles Russell - making them collectively Australia's 11th to 15th dual code internationals. This repeated a similar occurrence two years earlier when five former Wallabies in Micky Dore, Dally Messenger, Denis Lutge, Doug McLean snr and Johnny Rosewell all debuted for the Kangaroos in the first ever Test against New Zealand.

He toured with the 1911-12 Kangaroos and captained Australia in all three Tests against Great Britain for two wins and one draw.

Australia's first Rugby League Ashes success was testament to his on field genius and off field leadership. He played in 31 matches on Tour and scored 10 tries.

His representative career ended at age 32 with that Ashes success and in retirement he became the first of the game's high profile non-playing coaches. He coached Glebe, Wests and Norths in the following years, including Norths Premiership sides of 1921-1922.

In February 2008, McKivat was named in the list of Australia's 100 Greatest Players (1908-2007) which was commissioned by the NRL and ARL to celebrate the code's centenary year in Australia.[1][2]

Playing record

  • Club: Glebe(1910-14) 54 games, 5 tries
  • Representative: Australia (1910-12) 5 Tests, and New South Wales (1910-12) 13 appearances.

Sources

Whiticker, Alan (2004) Captaining the Kangaroos, New Holland, Sydney

References

  1. ^ Peter Cassidy (2008-02-23). "Controversy reigns as NRL releases top 100 players". Macquarie National News. Retrieved 2008-02-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ "Centenary of Rugby League - The Players". NRL & ARL. 2008-02-23. Retrieved 2008-02-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
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