Dominic Shipperley (born 4 January 1991) is a retired professional

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...

footballer who played for the Australian national team in both test rugby and rugby sevens. In

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Building on various Southern Hem ...

, he played four seasons with the

Queensland Reds The Queensland Reds is the rugby union team for the Australian state of Queensland that competes in the Southern Hemisphere's Super Rugby competition. Prior to 1996, they were a representative team selected from the rugby union club competitions ...

from 2011 to 2014, and a further two seasons for the

Melbourne Rebels The Melbourne Rebels is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Melbourne. They made their debut in SANZAR's Super Rugby tournament in 2011. They were the first privately owned professional rugby union team in Australia, until 2017 ...

. His regular playing position was

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is exp ...

Early life

Shipperley was born in

Redcliffe, Queensland Redcliffe is a town and suburb in the Moreton Bay Region, Queensland, Australia. It also refers colloquially to the Redcliffe Peninsula as a whole, a peninsula jutting into Moreton Bay which contains several other suburbs. Since the 1880s, R ...

. He attended

St Joseph's College, Nudgee , motto_translation = A Sign of Faith , location = Boondall, Queensland , country = Australia , coordinates = , other_name = St. Joseph's Nudgee College , former_name ...

and in 2008 received an OP1 which is the highest possible mark that can be achieved in the Queensland Certificate of Education. He played for the

Australian Schoolboys The Australian Schoolboys refer to junior teams that represent Australia in various sports. The name is mainly used in rugby league, rugby union and baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine player ...

rugby team in 2008, and with the

Brothers A brother is a man or boy who shares one or more parents with another; a male sibling. The female counterpart is a sister. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to non-familial ...

club in Brisbane.

Rugby career

Shipperley was selected for the

Australian Sevens The Australia Sevens is an international rugby sevens tournament that was first played in 1986. Currently hosted as the Sydney Sevens, the event is part of the World Rugby Sevens Series. The tournament was held in Brisbane, in Adelaide, and ...

squad during the

2009–10 IRB Sevens World Series The 2009–10 IRB Sevens World Series was the eleventh of an annual series of rugby union sevens tournaments for full national sides run by the International Rugby Board since 1999–2000. Samoa won the IRB Sevens World Series crown for their firs ...

, playing in the

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 m ...

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater A ...

, and

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

tournaments in the team which finished the series in third place. As a member of the Australia under 20 team that competed in the

2010 IRB Junior World Championship The 2010 IRB Junior World Championship was the third annual international rugby union competition for Under 20 national teams, this competition replaced the now defunct under 19 and under 21 world championships. The event was organised by rugby's ...

in Argentina, he scored a hat-trick of tries in the team's win against South Africa, with Australia finishing runner-up in the tournament. He was also selected for the Under 20s squad in 2011, but did not travel to the tournament due to his Super Rugby commitments with the

. Shipperley made his Super Rugby debut for the Reds during the

2011 Super Rugby season The 2011 Super Rugby season was the first season of the new 15-team format for the Super Rugby competition, which involved teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Including its past iterations as Super 12 and Super 14, this was the 16t ...

against the

Hurricanes A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm, storm system characterized by a Low-pressure area, low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, Beaufort scale, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms tha ...

. His breakthrough year came in 2012, beginning in the first game of the Reds' season with his last-minute match winning try against the Waratahs. A 75-metre sprint beating six defenders to score ended a nine-year losing drought for the Reds in Sydney and earned Shipperley the Super Rugby Try of the Year accolade. He started in all 17 matches for the Reds in 2012, and won the Most Improved Player award for the Reds. Later in 2012 Shipperley received a starting Test debut for Australia against

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 count ...

for the match in Perth after an injury forced out winger

Drew Mitchell Drew Alan Mitchell (born 26 March 1984) is a former Australian rugby union professional player. He played on the wing or as fullback. Up to the 2006 season he played for the Queensland Reds. He played for the Western Force for the 2007–09 Sup ...

. He went on to gain two further caps in the

2012 Rugby Championship The 2012 Rugby Championship was the inaugural annual rugby union series between the national rugby union teams of New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and Argentina. For sponsorship reasons, the competition was known as ''The Castle Rugby Cham ...

. In June 2014 he signed a two-year deal to join the Melbourne Rebels beginning in 2015. A few weeks later, while playing for the Reds against the Rebels, he suffered a badly fractured and dislocated ankle requiring surgery. Shipperley managed to recover from that injury for the Rebels' opening game of the season, however, playing in a famous 20–10 away win against the in

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...

, He went on to score four tries from twelve Super Rugby matches in 2015. Shipperley continued his good form for the Rebels in 2016, but missed the second half of the Super Rugby season due to a knee injury. Later that year he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament during the 2016

National Rugby Championship The National Rugby Championship, known as NRC, was an Australian rugby union competition. It was contested by eight teams, seven from Australia and one from Fiji. The tournament ran from 2014 until 2019 before being disbanded in 2020 following ...

semi-final, forcing him out of all rugby for 2017. He was initially included in the Rebels' extended playing squad for 2018, and played in the Brisbane Global Rugby Tens before a further knee injury prompted his retirement from rugby in the early part of the 2018 season.

Super Rugby statistics

References

Sources

External links

* *
Wallabies profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shipperley, Dom 1991 births Australian rugby union players Australia international rugby union players Queensland Reds players Melbourne Rebels players Brothers Old Boys players Rugby union wings Living people Melbourne Rising players Australian rugby sevens players Rugby union players from Queensland People from South East Queensland