Tom "Angry" William Cross was a New Zealand

rugby football Rugby football is the collective name for the team sports of rugby union and rugby league. Canadian football and, to a lesser extent, American football were once considered forms of rugby football, but are seldom now referred to as such. The ...

er who represented New Zealand in both

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 ...

and

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 ...

Early years

Cross worked as a labourer and while in Petone worked at the Gear Meat Works.John Haynes ''From All Blacks to All Golds: Rugby League's Pioneers'', Christchurch, Ryan and Haynes, 1996.

Rugby football

Cross was originally from Dunedin and played

for the Kaikorai Club in 1896. Cross was considered a very large man for the times and he represented

Otago Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...

from 1898 to 1900. He then joined the Linwood club in Christchurch and represented

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from 1901 to 1902, gaining South Island selection in 1902. By 1903 he had moved to Wellington and played for both the Poneke and

Petone Rugby Club The Petone Rugby Football Club was founded in 1885 and has been the Wellington Premier Champion 39 times between 1895 and 2005. In addition, the club has won the Club Championship on 42 occasions between 1922 and 2005. Petone is a constituent cl ...

s. In his 4th match for Poneke against Melrose on May 23, 1903, he dislocated his shoulder and was taken to hospital. He had been named to play in his Wellington debut against Wairarapa but due to the injury was unable to. He also played for Wellington Province twice in 1905 against New Zealand on July 29 and Australia on August 19. On September 3 he played in the test match against Australia which New Zealand won 14–3. He scored near the posts with the try converted to set the final score. Cross was injured during the match and missed several representative matches for Wellington over the subsequent weeks. When in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

he also played for the

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

, being one of the first players to have represented both Islands. He ended his rugby union career on a sour note, being sent off for foul play in a club match and subsequently suspended for the rest of the season. The incident occurred on July 13 in a match against St James. He alleged that he had been kicked whilst on the ground and got up and attempted to strike his opponent though no blow as landed. The referee sent him off immediately despite his protests. He then joined the New Zealand Northern Union (rugby league) team which had been organised by

Albert Henry Baskerville Albert (Bert) Henry Baskerville (born as "Baskiville") (15 January 1883 – 20 May 1908) was a Wellington postal clerk, a rugby union forward, author of the book "''Modern Rugby Football: New Zealand Methods; Points for the Beginner, the Pla ...

soon after and departed for

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on August 9 with the side. Cross made his

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debut in 1901 and won selection again in 1904 and 1905. At the time he was regarded as one of the "hard men" of New Zealand rugby. Wellington rugby team in 1906

Rugby league

Being an excellent support player despite his large size made him an automatic selection for the professional All Blacks in their 1907–08 tour of Great Britain and Australia. He was one of six players from the

selected. While on tour Cross played in all eight test matches and, along with

Wright Wright is an occupational surname originating in England. The term 'Wright' comes from the circa 700 AD Old English word 'wryhta' or 'wyrhta', meaning worker or shaper of wood. Later it became any occupational worker (for example, a shipwright is ...

, Johnston and

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, made up the core of the forward pack during the tour. He was sent off in the third test match against the Northern Union but scored a try in the second test against

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. He returned from the tour in June 1908. In April, 1909 he narrowly escaped death at the Gear Meat Company in Petone when extension work they were carrying out saw scaffolding and steel beams collapse. One of the beams killed an employee and Cross and one other were seriously injured. It was said afterwards that he would not play again but he appeared for Wellington in their match with

Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth Dist ...

on October 2 at the Petone ground, and against

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

on October 9, 1909, at Victoria Park, where he scored a try in a 22–19 win. This was the first of only five victories for Wellington over Auckland in over 100 years.History Of Wellington Rugby League Association
Wellington Rugby League Cross retired after the 1909 season. Like five other members of the touring party Cross is buried at Karori Cemetery. New Zealand Rugby League Team of 1907-08 to Tour England

New Zealand Rugby League Team of 1907-08 to Tour England

Legacy

In 1926 a benefit match was played for Cross between his former Poneke and Petone rugby clubs as he was seriously ill. Petone won the match 21-6 before a crowd of 3,000. It was reported in 1928 that he was in hospital suffering from "spinal trouble". Cross died on July 3, 1930, aged just 54 at the Wellington Public Hospital. Comments and obituaries appeared for him in several newspapers from areas where he had played. The Kaikorai club senior side wore white armbands in their match against Varsity B in the weekend following his death in his memory. Cross was named in the in the

Petone Panthers Petone (Māori: ''Pito-one''), a large suburb of Lower Hutt, Wellington, stands at the southern end of the Hutt Valley, on the northern shore of Wellington Harbour. The Māori name means "end of the sand beach". Europeans first settled in Pe ...

' Team of the Century in 2012. Although bizarrely it appears he did not play for them at all as he was 32 when he returned from the tour of Australia and England and then suffered his accident early in 1909 and took some time to recover. He was present at the meeting which formed the club on Wednesday, September 16, 1908. And was elected on to the committee. However the club did not amount to anything at this point and it was years before they began playing games in 1912.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cross, Angry 1876 births 1930 deaths New Zealand rugby union players New Zealand international rugby union players Dual-code rugby internationals Otago rugby union players Canterbury rugby union players Wellington rugby union players New Zealand rugby league players New Zealand national rugby league team players Wellington rugby league team players South Island rugby union players North Island rugby union players Burials at Karori Cemetery Rugby league locks