Mark McGaw (born 17 May 1964) is an Australian former 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 in the 1980s and 1990s. Nicknamed Sparkles, he achieved national and state representative honors in the sport and following his retirement became one of the Gladiators in the Australian version of the TV show. McGaw's usual position was at . McGaw is also the current coach of the North Sydney Bears SG Ball team for 2016.

Rugby league

McGaw played his club football for the

Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Cronulla, in the Sutherland Shire, Southern Sydney, New South Wales. They compete in the National Rugby League (NRL), Australasia's premier rugby league ...

Penrith Panthers The Penrith Panthers are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the western Sydney suburb of Penrith that competes in the NRL. The team is based west of the centre of Sydney, at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Penrith ...

and

South Sydney Rabbitohs The South Sydney Rabbitohs are a professional 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 pla ...

. Whilst guesting with English club Leeds he played for them against the 1986 Kangaroo tourists. The following season he played for the New South Wales Blues, appearing in all three games of the

1987 State of Origin series The 1987 State of Origin series saw the sixth time the annual three-match series between the New South Wales and Queensland representative rugby league football teams was contested entirely under 'State of Origin' selection rules. It saw the em ...

and scoring in Games I and III. McGaw played at centre for the Blues in all three matches of the

1988 State of Origin series The 1988 State of Origin series was the seventh annual three-game series between the New South Wales and Queensland representative rugby league football teams to be contested entirely under 'state of origin' selection rules. Queensland enjoyed th ...

as well. McGaw was selected to play at centre for

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

in their victory over

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 ...

at the

1988 Rugby League World Cup Final The 1988 Rugby League World Cup Final was the conclusive game of the 1985–1988 Rugby League World Cup tournament and was played between New Zealand and Australia on 9 October 1988 at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand. Australia won the final b ...

in Auckland. He is listed on the ''Australian Players Register'' as Kangaroo No. 590. McGaw played at centre for New South Wales in all 3 matches of the

1990 State of Origin series The 1990 State of Origin series saw the ninth time that the annual three-game series between New South Wales and Queensland representative rugby league football teams was contested entirely under "state of origin" selection rules. It was the firs ...

, scoring tries in Games I and III. At the end of the

1990 NSWRL season The 1990 New South Wales Rugby League season was the eighty-third season of professional rugby league football in Australia. Sixteen clubs competed for the J J Giltinan Shield and Winfield Cup during the premiership season, which culminated in a g ...

, he went on the

1990 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain and France The 1990 Kangaroo Tour was the seventeenth Kangaroo Tour, where the Australian national rugby league team (known as the Castlemaine XXXX, XXXX Kangaroos due to sponsorship reasons) travelled to Europe and played eighteen matches against British a ...

. McGaw was selected to play for New South Wales in all three matches of the

1991 State of Origin series The 1991 State of Origin series saw the tenth time the annual three-match State of Origin series between the New South Wales and Queensland representative rugby league teams was played entirely under 'state of origin' selection rules. It was nota ...

, scoring a try in Game II. At the end of the 1991 NSWRL season he was selected to go on the

1991 Kangaroo tour of Papua New Guinea The 1991 Kangaroo tour of Papua New Guinea was a two-week, end of season tour of Papua New Guinea by the Australia national rugby league team. The Australians played five matches on the tour, including two Test matches against the Papua New Guinea ...

. McGaw played for cross-town rivals

for the

1993 NSWRL season The 1993 NSWRL season (known as the 1993 Winfield Cup Premiership for sponsorship reasons) was the eighty-sixth season of professional rugby league football in Australia. The New South Wales Rugby League's sixteen teams competed for the J. J. G ...

. From 1994 to 1995 he played for the

Career after Rugby league

McGaw appeared as "Hammer" on the Australian version of the TV show ''

Gladiators A gladiator ( la, gladiator, "swordsman", from , "sword") was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gla ...

'' from 1995 to 1996, as well as joining other rugby league players such as

Paul Vautin Paul Vautin (born 21 July 1959) nicknamed Fatty, is an Australian football commentator and formerly a professional rugby league footballer, captain and coach. He has provided commentary for the Nine Network's coverage of rugby league since join ...

Paul Sironen Paul Sironen (born 23 May 1965) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer of Finnish descent who was a prominent Second-row forward for the Balmain Tigers during the late 1980s, and early 1990s. He was part of the team that ...

and

Darryl Brohman Darryl Gregory Brohman (born 22 June 1956), also known by the nickname of "The Big Marn", is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1970s and 1980s, and coached in the 1980s, now best known as a commentat ...

in modeling for

Lowes Menswear Lowes Menswear, also currently known as Lowes Manhattan Pty Ltd is a private, family-owned leading Australian menswear and retail chain established in 1898 by William Lowe. There are now over 200 stores nationally because of expansion driven b ...

. McGaw is founder of '' Mark McGaw Institute of Sports Science''.

Defamation case

On 2 November 2006, the

Supreme Court of New South Wales The Supreme Court of New South Wales is the highest state court of the Australian State of New South Wales. It has unlimited jurisdiction within the state in civil matters, and hears the most serious criminal matters. Whilst the Supreme Court i ...

awarded McGaw $385,000 for a defamatory story ''

Today Tonight ''Today Tonight'' is an Australian current affairs television program produced by the Seven Network. It aired from January 1995 to November 2019 in Adelaide and Perth. Editions in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne were previously produced befo ...

'' broadcast in June 2003. The Supreme Court jury found that the story made two defamatory imputations: that McGaw was "a man of dangerous domestic violence", and that he "bashed his lover so severely that she was hospitalized with horrific injuries".

References

External links

Mark McGaw Institute of sports science
1964 births Living people Australia national rugby league team players Australian rugby league players Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks players Leeds Rhinos players New South Wales City Origin rugby league team players New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin players Penrith Panthers players Rugby league centres Rugby league players from Sydney South Sydney Rabbitohs players Australian expatriate sportspeople in England {{Australia-rugbyleague-bio-1960s-stub