Dick Poole

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Dick Poole

Australian national rugby league captain
Personal information
Full name	Herbert Richard Poole
Date of birth	November 27, 1930 (1930-11-27) (age 77)
Place of birth	Surry Hills, New South Wales,
Youth clubs
Years	Club
	Earlwood CYO
Senior clubs*
Years	Club	Apps (points)
1950-58 1959-60	Newtown Bluebags Western Suburbs	133 (168) 31 (27)
Representative teams
1954–1957 1955-57	New South Wales Australia	15 (27) 13 (15)
Professional clubs coached
1966–1968	Newtown Bluebags
* Professional club appearances and points counted for domestic first grade only.

Herbert Richard Poole (born 1930 in Surry Hills, New South Wales) is an Australian former rugby league player. He was a centre for the Australian national team. He played in ten Tests and three World Cup games between 1955 and 1957, as captain on three occasions.

[edit] Club career

Poole played junior football at the De La Salle school in Marrickville and then with the Earlwood Christian Youth Organisation before being graded with Newtown in 1949. Initially he played mainly in reserve grade with occasional first grade appearances up until 1952 when he established himself as a centre in the top grade.

He was captain-coach of Newtown in 1955 when they went down by one point to South Sydney in the Grand Final. He played for 133 games for Newtown over nine seasons till 1958, the last four seasons as captain-coach. In 1959 he moved to the Western Suburbs Magpies for his last two seasons.

[edit] Representative career

He first represented for New South Wales in 1954. Following his Kangaroo Tour appearances of 1957 he was selected as captain-coach of New South Wales in 1957.

He made his Australian Test debut in 1955 in the series against France after having initially been picked as a reserve for the squad. His last minute call up was for the third Test played in Sydney in July 1955. He was selected for the three Tests of 1956 against New Zealand and then for the 1956-57 Kangaroo Tour of England and France. He appeared in six Tests and 11 minor tour matches scoring 17 tries in all.

In 1957 he was a surprise selection as captain-coach ahead of the more experienced Ken Kearney in the squad for the World Cup tournament to be played in Australia. Poole's side included magnificent players such as Brian Carlson, Norm Provan, Kel O'Shea, Kearney and Brian Clay and they swept all before them. Poole enjoys a record of three times captaining his country for three victories.

[edit] Post playing

At the end of his playing career Poole coached Newtown from 1966-68.

[edit] Matches played

[edit] References

• Whiticker, Alan (2004) Captaining the Kangaroos, New Holland, Sydney
• Andrews, Malcolm (2006) The ABC of Rugby League Austn Broadcasting Corpn, Sydney