Alan Stewart Cameron (18 November 1929 – 20 March 2010) was an Australian

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

footballer of the 1950s and 60s. A

State State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

and

national National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

representative lock-forward he made twenty Test appearances and over fifty additional tour match appearances for the

Wallabies A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and so ...

, captaining the national side in four Tests matches.Australian Rugby – The Game and the Players (Jack Pollard Syd, 1994) pp 83: Cameron, Alan Stewart (1929)

Rugby career

Cameron attended

Newington College , motto_translation = To Faith Add Knowledge , location = Inner West and Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales , country = Australia , coordinates = , pushpin_map = A ...

from 1945 to 1948Newington College Register of Past Students 1863–1998 (Syd, 1999) p. 28 and was selected in the

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

combined team in 1946 and 1947.Howell pp. 149–151 After school he joined the St George Rugby Union Football Club and would go on to play 266 games for the club. In his debut year in grade and after only five club matches he was selected in the

New South Wales Waratahs The New South Wales Waratahs ( or ;), referred to as the Waratahs, are an Australian professional rugby union team representing the majority of New South Wales in the Super Rugby competition. The Riverina and other southern parts of the state, ...

side to meet

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

in the annual inter-state series. He made twenty-six State representative appearances between 1948 and 1957. He made his international representative debut for the

against the

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks ( mi, Ōpango), represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987 ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

in June 1951 debuting alongside other future Test captains in

Dick Tooth Richard Murray Tooth (21 September 1929 – 5 August 2020) was an Australian rugby union footballer of the 1950s. He represented the Wallabies in ten Test matches and nineteen total appearances and was Australian captain on two occasions. He res ...

and

Keith Winning Keith Charles "Arch" Winning (1928 – 2003) was an Australian national representative rugby union player for Australia. He captained the national side in the sole Test match appearance he made. Biography Born in Maleny, Queensland Winning's ea ...

and played in all three Tests of that series. For the next five-year he was an automatic selection in Australian Test sides and touring squads and he formed a formidable second-row partnership with Nick Shehadie controlling the Australian line-out and ever working hard in the tight forward play. He toured

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

twice (1952 and 1955), South Africa in 1953 and Europe and America on the

1957–58 Australia rugby union tour of Britain, Ireland and France Between late 1957 and March 1958 the Australia national rugby union team – the Wallabies – conducted a world tour encompassing Britain, Ireland, France and Canada on which they played five Tests and thirty-one minor tour matches. The Wallabi ...

. He usually played in a high proportion of all the tour matches as well as the Tests. At home he played in Test series against visiting

sides in 1951 and 1957,

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

in 1952 and 1954 and the

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

in 1956.

Captaincy

On the 1952 tour to New Zealand he played in nine of the total ten matches including both Tests. At aged twenty-two he was honoured with the Australian captaincy in a mid-week match against King Country. In South Africa in 1953 he played in sixteen tour matches as well as the four Tests, captaining Australia twice in tour matches. On the 1955 New Zealand tour he played in twelve of the thirteen total matches and was formally recognised as the squad's vice-captain under John Solomon. After Solomon suffered an injury, Cameron debuted as Australian Test captain in the second Test at

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

in September 1955. He held the captaincy for the third Test which saw a Wallaby victory at

Eden Park Eden Park is New Zealand's largest sports stadium, with a capacity of 50,000. Located in central Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, it is three kilometres southwest of the CBD, on the boundary between the suburbs of Mount Eden and King ...

. In 1956 when the

Springboks The South Africa national rugby union team, commonly known as the Springboks (colloquially the Boks, Bokke or Amabokoboko), is the country's national team governed by the South African Rugby Union. The Springboks play in green and gold jersey ...

visited Australia for a two Test series he was the captain for both. He made a further Test appearance against

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

in 1957 and then was one of the senior players selected for the 1957–58 Wallaby tour. Tony Miller's form was on the ascendancy at that time and Cameron held his Test lock position for only the Test against

, but he played in twenty-one other matches of the forty-match tour and captained the side in seven of those.

Published references

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

Footnotes

External links

Alan Cameron record at StatsGuru

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cameron, Alan 1929 births 2010 deaths Australian rugby union captains Australian rugby union players Australia international rugby union players Rugby union locks People educated at Newington College Australian auctioneers Rugby union players from New South Wales People from the Riverina