John Gallagher

On pure rugby ability John Gallagher rates high among the best of All Black fullbacks. He took over the position during the 1987 World Cup and over the next three seasons in 18 tests became an automatic selection in the position and in those years was close to being the world’s best.

But Gallagher has become more celebrated in the game’s history not so much for his deeds on the field but for having started an exodus to rugby league on a scale that had not been known in New Zealand since just before World War I.

Gallagher was remarkable in another sense in that he was neither New Zealand born nor educated. English born and raised but of Irish parentage, Gallagher came to New Zealand as a teenager to play for the Oriental-Rongotai club in Wellington with no real ambitions beyond that.

His talent, though, was evident and he had no sooner arrived in this country than he was in the Wellington representative side. All Black Allan Hewson was then ensconced as Wellington’s fullback but Gallagher found a regular position as a centre. Tall, naturally athletic and with blinding pace, Gallagher impressed as a superb attacking back and among his feats for Wellington was to play in the side which under the coaching of Earle Kirton won the 1986 national provincial championship.

By then Gallagher had moved to fullback, where he was an even more lethal attacker and showed, too, that he was a powerful kicker, totalling 185 points for Wellington in the 1986 season.

At the end of that year, having had three seasons in New Zealand, Gallagher was chosen in the All Black team for the short tour of France. International eligibility regulations then were virtually non existent but Gallagher had never played for England, or Ireland, at any level and he seemed committed to New Zealand on a permanent basis, having become a police officer.

Gallagher thus became the second young Englishman in the 1980s to become an All Black, following Jamie Salmon and like Salmon, Gallager eventually returned to Britain. But few would have anticipated this from the whole hearted way he threw himself into his All Black career.

In France he played in four of the matches, two as a fullback and two as a centre. For the two internationals Kieran Crowley and Joe Stanley were preferred in the respective positions and with Crowley and Grant Fox in the touring party Gallagher was unemployed as a kicker. But he showed enough in either postion to suggest he had a long term future.

In the 1987 season he was again at centre for the Central Zone in the George Nepia Trophy series but shifted to fullback for the final trial in Whangarei. He made the 26-man squad for the World Cup and though Crowley was also included he became the first choice fullback.

In both the tournament and in the subsequent Bledisloe Cup test in Sydney Gallagher was at his sparkling best. He scored four tries in the pool match against Fiji, along with wing Craig Green equalling the New Zealand test record, and scored another in the quarterfinal win over Scotland.

In the next three seasons Gallagher made three tours (to Japan in 1987), Australia (1988) and Wales and Ireland (1989) and played home tests against Wales, Argentina, Australia and France. The All Blacks in that period were beyond argument the best team in the world and Gallagher was a key contributor. He was a huge attacking threat out wide along with wing John Kirwan and he and his Wellington team-mate John Schuster, when he became the second five eighths in the 1988 season, formed an effective combination. In just 18 tests Gallagher scored 13 tries, including three against Argentina in Dunedin in 1989. But while he often scored heavily in games other than the tests the presence of Fox meant he was never used as a kicker at international level.

Gallagher seemed assured of a long stay as All Black fullback when early in the 1990 season, after having played 88 games for Wellington and appearing in the All Black trials, he made a shock move to the British league club, Leeds. In switching codes he was followed in quick order by Frano Botica, Matthew Ridge, Schuster and leading provincial players Daryl Halligan and Brett Iti. It was a clear indication of the the dissatisfaction with the amateurism regulations then in force and which a few seasons later led to an acceptance of full blown professionalism. Surprisingly, of this group Gallagher made one of the less successful conversions to league and within a couple of seasons had returned to rugby but to nothing like his former glory.