Brian Clinton Hambly (31 October 1937 – 30 August 2008) was an Australian

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 ...

player, a representative forward for the Australia national team between 1959 and 1965. His club career was played with South Sydney and

Parramatta Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...

. He was considered one of the Australia’s finest rugby league players of the twentieth century.

Club career

Souths and Wagga

A South Sydney junior from the Mascot club, Hambly played in Souths’ Presidents Cup side in 1955. He was graded by the Rabbitohs in 1956 and played three seasons with the club. He represented in a New South Wales Colts side against Great Britain in 1958. In 1959 aged only 21 he took on a captain-coach role in the country town of

Wagga Wagga, New South Wales Wagga Wagga (; informally called Wagga) is a major regional city in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. Straddling the Murrumbidgee River, with an urban population of more than 56,000 as of June 2018, Wagga Wagga is the state's la ...

for two seasons and it was from there as a country player that he made his state and national representative debuts that same season.

Parramatta

In 1961 he was lured to the

club on the then record transfer fee of 2,500 pounds. The Parramatta club had languished at the bottom of the ladder in their first fifteen seasons after admission to the top grade competition in 1947 – they finished last eight times in the ten seasons from 1952 to 1961. With St. George champion

Ken Kearney Kenneth Howard "Killer" Kearney (3 May 192418 August 2006) was an Australian rugby footballer – a List of dual-code rugby internationals, dual-code international player – and a rugby league coach. He represented the Australia national rugby ...

appointed coach, 1962 marked a turnaround: internationals Hambly and Ron Lynch had joined the club in 1961 with

Bob Bugden Robert Alfred Bugden (born 25 February 1936) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer. He was a with the St. George Dragons in the first half of their 11-year consecutive premiership winning run from 1956 to 1966. He was al ...

and

Ken Thornett Ken Thornett (27 November 1937 – 16 August 2016), also known by the nickname of "The Mayor of Parramatta", was an Australian rugby league . He represented the Kangaroos in twelve Tests during 1963 and 1964 and on the off-season Kangaroo Tou ...

following in 1962. The club was particularly competitive from 1962 to 1965 making the finals in all four seasons. Hambly, then at the top of his career, gave great service to the club at that time. He played on till 1967 in which season he was named captain-coach, however suffering the effects of knee injury during the year he sacked himself in favour of young future Eel star

Bob O'Reilly Robert Edward O'Reilly (born 16 February 1949) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. An Australian international and New South Wales interstate representative prop forward, he p ...

Representative career

Hambly first appeared on the representative scene in 1958 for New South Wales Colts against Great Britain playing alongside future greats in

Johnny Raper John William Raper (12 April 1939 – 9 February 2022) was an Australian professional rugby league footballer and coach. Nicknamed "Chook", he was a lock-forward who earned a then-record of 33 Test caps in the Australia national team between ...

and Ian Walsh. From his country position at Wagga he was first selected for New South Wales at the senior level in 1959 and played in the New South Wales loss to Queensland that attracted 35,261 spectators, smashing Brisbane's previous record for an interstate match of 22,817. He was then picked as a reserve for Australia’s test series against

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 ...

that year and then for the 1959

Kangaroo tour Kangaroo Tour is the name given to Australian national rugby league team tours of Great Britain and France, tours to New Zealand and the one-off tour to Papua New Guinea (1991). The first Kangaroo Tour was in 1908. Traditionally, Kangaroo Tours to ...

. Hambly played in all six Tests plus in 16 other minor tour matches. Hambly was the preferred lock in the first two Ashes tests of the 1959-60 Kangaroo tour but the great form of

saw Hambly moved to the second-row for the remainder of this test career. He toured to Britain again the next year for the 1960

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

and made a second Kangaroo tour in 1963-64 where he played in five tests and nineteen tour matches. Hambly injured a calf muscle doing private training and missed Australia’s 50–12 win at Swinton which secured

the Ashes The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. The term originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, ''The Sporting Times'', immediately after Australia's 1882 victory at The Oval, its first Te ...

. Hambly made a further overseas tour of New Zealand in 1965. In all, Hambly played in eight different Test series, appearing against all of the major rugby league playing nations; Great Britain (five times), France (nine times) and New Zealand (four times).

Career playing statistics

Post playing and Accolades

Hambly was the licensee of the Willoughby Hotel on Sydney’s North Shore from 1975 to 1979. In February 2008, Hambly was named in the list of Australia’s ''100 Greatest Players'' (1908–2007) which was commissioned by the

NRL The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

and

ARL ARL may refer to: Military * US Navy hull classification symbol for repair ship * Admiralty Research Laboratory, UK * United States Army Research Laboratory * ARL 44, a WWII French tank Organizations * Aero Research Limited, a UK adhesives compan ...

to celebrate the code's centenary year in Australia. In 2005, Hambly was inducted into Parramatta's hall of fame. Hambly died on 30 August 2008, aged 71.

Sources

* Whiticker, Alan & Hudson, Glen (2006) ''The Encyclopedia of Rugby League Players'', Gavin Allen Publishing, Sydney * Andrews, Malcolm (2006) ''The ABC of Rugby League'' Austn Broadcasting Corpn, Sydney * Pollard, Jack (ed) ''Gregory's Guide to Rugby League'' (1965), Grenville Publishing Sydney

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hambly, Brian 1937 births 2008 deaths Australia national rugby league team players Australian rugby league players City New South Wales rugby league team players Country New South Wales rugby league team players New South Wales rugby league team players Parramatta Eels coaches Parramatta Eels players Rugby league players from Sydney Rugby league props Rugby league second-rows South Sydney Rabbitohs players