Flamin' Oath: Alf Stewart From Home And Away Nearly Played For The Wallabies
Long before he bought the Summer Bay caravan park, Alf Stewart (aka actor Ray Meagher) was a handy first five-eighth who played a handful of games for Queensland. He tells Calum Henderson the story of his brush with Wallabies selection.
“I’m a total hypocrite,” Ray Meagher admits. He looks and sounds exactly like Alf Stewart, his famous character on Australian soap opera Home and Away. We are in a meeting room in the TVNZ office building in Auckland, where Meagher is doing promo for an upcoming stage production of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, but when he talks it feels like we could be in Summer Bay, talking footy down at the surf club.
“I run into Kiwis living in Australia all the time,” he tells me, “and I’ll say ‘so you follow the All Blacks?’ ‘Yeah yeah of course mate.’ So then I ask ‘when the Wallabies play England, who do you support?’ And they always say England. The bastards follow everybody but the Wallabies! That doesn’t go down well.”
“Then I think hang on, what have I done? I’ve moved from Queensland to New South Wales, and I follow Queensland whenever they play New South Wales and then want everyone else to beat New South Wales,” he laughs.
Meagher’s loyalty to the maroon runs deeper than many may realise. In the 1960s, long before he was hot-headed bait shop owner Alf Stewart, he spent the best part of a decade playing first five-eighth for Brisbane club Wests, going on to represent Queensland a handful of times – most memorably against a touring French side – and even came close to being selected for the 1969 Wallabies tour to South Africa.
The story of his brush with Wallabies selection begins and ends with Des Connor, a “sensationally good” halfback who played 12 tests for Australia before marrying a Kiwi, moving to New Zealand and playing 12 more for the All Blacks. “At that time that was quite a number of tests – they might only play 3 a year.”
Connor was made coach of the ‘69 Wallabies side to tour South Africa, despite having only recently returned from New Zealand. Meagher played in a trial game before the tour, one of the few chances selectors had to watch players before picking a team. “He didn’t really know the form of anybody, and they used to take 30 on those trips, two full teams.”
The other selector was long-serving Australian rugby administrator Joe French. “This fella Joe French was from the same club as Des, Brothers Old Boys in Brisbane,” says Meagher. “The captain of my first grade team [Wests] was sitting right behind these two while this trial was going on.”
“At one stage the ball went through the hands and I backed up around – it was a simple runaround thing. I went around the bloke that I’d passed to and the outside centre stayed on his man, so there was a gap and I went through and scored a try.”
“Des Connor, who’d just come back from New Zealand, turned to Joe French and said ‘what about that bloke?’ My mate sitting behind them told me Joe French just looked at him and shook his head. It was all over, that was it. My one brush with [Wallabies selection] over in the shake of a head.”
“That was about a hundred years ago,” Meagher jokes. He still keeps a close eye on the Wallabies, but we don’t talk about their 3-0 series defeat to England in June. He also follows Queensland, particularly when they play New South Wales.
As for league, he obviously follows Queensland in State of Origin, but doesn’t have any particular club ties. “Whenever there’s a side that’s got a few rugby players that have gone to league I usually follow them,” he explains, “or if there’s a really good attacking league side that like to throw the ball around.”
At the moment he likes the Broncos, and remains hopeful they will return to form by the playoffs. “I think [Wayne] Bennett could possibly get the Broncs back into some form now that State of Origin is over. I think he’ll sort them out and as long as they’re somewhere in the 8 they’ll give a lot of teams a lot of trouble.”
Before we wrap up the interview I want to ask him one more question. If Summer Bay was a real Australian town, which footy club would its residents support? Meagher thinks for a second. “Probably the Sharks. Manly… are perceived to be a bit silvertail-ish, whereas Cronulla’s more of a working man’s sort of club. Titans maybe? Nah, probably the Sharks.”
As we stand up to leave, Meagher laughs again. “That’s good,” he says. “I’ve never thought about that before.”
Comments on RugbyPass
It’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
2 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
24 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
1 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to commentsHats off to Fabian for a very impressive journey to date. Is it as ‘uniquely unlikely’ as Rugby Pass suggests, given Anton Segner’s journey at the Blues?
1 Go to commentsSad that this was not confirmed. When administrators talk about expanding the game they evidently don’t include pathways to the top tier of rugby for teams outside of the old boys club. Rugby deserves better, and certainly Georgia does.
2 Go to commentsLions might take him on if they move on Van Rooyen but I doubt he will want to go back, might consider it a step backwards for himself. Sharks would take him on but if Plumtree goes on to win the challenge cup they will keep him on. Also sharks showing some promising signs recently. Stormers and Bulls are stable and Springboks are already filled up. Quality coach though, interesting to see where he ends up
1 Go to commentsAnd the person responsible for creating a culture of accountability is?
3 Go to commentsMore useless words from Ben Smith -Please get another team to write about. SA really dont need your input, it suck anyway.
264 Go to commentsThis disgraceful episode must result in management and coach team sackings. A new manager with worse results than previous and the coaching staff need to coached. Awful massacre led by donkeys.
1 Go to commentsInteresting article with one glaring mistake. This sentence: “And between the top four nations right now, Ireland, France, South Africa, and New Zealand…” should read: And between the top four nations right now, South Africa, Ireland, New Zealand and France…”. Get it right wistful thinkers, its not that hard.
24 Go to commentsHow did Penny get the gig anyway?
3 Go to commentsNice write up Nick and I would have agreed a week ago. However as you would know Cale & co got absolutely monstered by the Blues back row of Sotutu, Ioane and Papaliti and not all of these 3 are guaranteed a start in the Black jumper. He may need to put some kgs before stepping up, Spring tour? After the week end Joe will be a bit more restless. Will need to pick a mobile tough pack for Wales and hope England does the right thing and bashes the ABs. I like your last paragraph but I would bring Swinton, Hannigan into the 6 role and Bobby V to 8
24 Go to commentsThe Crusaders can still get in to the Play Off’s. The imminent return of outstanding captain Scott Barrett and his All Black team mate Codie Taylor will be a big boost.There are others like Tamaiti Williams too. Two home games coming up. Fellow Crusader fans get there and support these guys. I will be.
2 Go to commentsCant get more Wellington than Proctor.
2 Go to commentsWhy not let the media decide. Like how they choose the head coach. Like most of us we entrust the rugby system to choose. A rugby team includes the coaches. It's collective.
14 Go to commentsHi NIck, I have been very impressed with him and he seems a smart player who can see opportunities which Bobby V _(who must be an international 6_) doesn’t see or have the speed to take advantage of. If he continues to improve and puts on 5kgs then he could be a great 8. He is a bit taller than Keiran Reid at 1.93m and 111 kgs, so his skill set fits his body size and who knows where it will lead. I hope the spate of Achilles tendon issues have been dealt with by the S&C people. It’s been a very long time since Mark Loane and Kefu stood out at 8. The question is will we be able to hold onto him, if he does make it he will be pretty hot property. I disagree with the idea of letting them go to the Northern Hemisphere and then bring them back.
24 Go to commentsBilly Fulton 🤣🤣🤣🤣 garrrmon not even close
14 Go to commentsDoes the AI take into account refs? hahaha Seriously why not have two on field refs to avoid bias?
24 Go to comments