Quote: Rogues Gallery "Enjoy. Great seam of memories uncovered there. Confirmation that girls were better looking in the 60's, not just my imagination! Also the same group of films has the 80's: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VAo2kjrsfQ Including the 82 Kangaroos, the best team I ever saw. Maybe they coincided with a relative trough in the British game but they were formidable. Eadie, Grothe and Meninga for starters, before you got to the halves. IIRC the BBC Sports Personality of the Year show awarded them Team of the Year, or was it Overseas Team of the Year? Either way it was quite an accolade for an RL team.

Quote: Rogues Gallery "Enjoy. Great seam of memories uncovered there. Confirmation that girls were better looking in the 60's, not just my imagination! Also the same group of films has the 80's: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VAo2kjrsfQ Including the 82 Kangaroos, the best team I ever saw. Maybe they coincided with a relative trough in the British game but they were formidable. Eadie, Grothe and Meninga for starters, before you got to the halves. IIRC the BBC Sports Personality of the Year show awarded them Team of the Year, or was it Overseas Team of the Year? Either way it was quite an accolade for an RL team.

Freddie, you are correct. When I saw your post regarding Gasnier I never took in that you where talking about the 1963 series, all I could remember was the Gasnier performance at Swinton in 1959.

The ground was packed and all we could do was applaud the Australians.

My fondest memory of Dave Bolton was at the Wembley final against Hull in 1959. I can still see him scorching up the middle of the park with no Hull player anywhere near him and we were already well in front.

What?

Interesting that in those days most of the Australian games were played on cricket grounds. Not much danger of players damaging themselves on the boundary fence. Unlike today's game at OT... The game was still regionalised in those days, talk of expansion to Cronulla and Canberra (?) on the soundtrack.

Going to Swinton must have been an eyeopener. Good story about Roger Millward not wanting to play on the frozen pitch but Johnny Raper saying it was like a hard OZ pitch!

Food for thought how the strength of the game in the various countries has changed over the years. As late as the 80s the French leg of the tour was referred to as being tough.

Just been on Youtube to see if the 1959 final was shown. It was but the Dave Bolton try wasn't included. However there was a clip of him kicking for Billy B to chase and score. If anybody thinks that Billy wasn't a speed merchant I suggest they have a look at that video on Youtube.