Quote: spacks grandad "Brian Bevan was one of a number of Aussie/Kiwis who came over after the second war, the Aussie game was struggling in the forties/ early fifties and the aussies/ KIwis playing in Britain formed the basis of the Other Nationalities team who had a lot of success in that period, most were on long term contracts, and I am lucky? to be old enough to remember Bev,Harry Bath, Ces Mountford,Brian Nordgren, Arthur Clues,,Lionel Cooper, and the Huddersfield team of many talents.Great days but distance gives enchantment, and I do not know which is better then or now. However both times are better than the Wigan dominated thugby of the eighties,with players being frequently out of the game with serious injuries caused by foul play, often lightlly punished'"
I started watching rugby league in 1945/46 and watched all of the players you mentioned. Hull signed 3 from Aus in 46/47- Bruce Ryan, Duncan Jackson and George Watt. Watt was a hooker who played for Aus when the GB team toured there in 1946. Ryan was a winger in the Lionel Cooper mould and subsequently left Hull to play for Leeds. I was at the Hull railway station with about another 4-5 thousand people to see Ryan arrive from Aus such was the excitement that we had signed him.
I first saw Bevan play against Hull a couple of years later in a star studded Warrington team that include Bath. Bevan remains my favourite ever rugby league player and Warrington my second favourite team. You gave us a player/coach who too played in that game and took Hull to arguably its greatest decade in history( 50's).
He was a coloured Welsh lad who played centre - Roy Francis. Good enough to have toured with the GB team in 1946 but racial politics at the time prevented that.