Dick Poole

For other uses, see Dick Poole (cyclist).

Dick Poole

Poole in action 1954
Personal information
Full name	Herbert Richard Poole
Born	27 November 1930 (1930-11-27) (age 80) Surry Hills, New South Wales
Playing information
Club
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1950–58	Newtown Bluebags	133				168
1959–60	Western Suburbs Magpies	31				27
	Total	164	0	0	0	195
Representative
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1954–1957	New South Wales	15				27
1955–57	Australia	13				15
Coaching information
Club
Years	Team	Gms	W	D	L	W%
1966–1968	Newtown Bluebags

Herbert Richard Poole (born 1930 in Surry Hills, New South Wales) is an Australian former rugby league footballer and coach. 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.

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.

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.

Post playing

At the end of his playing career Poole returned to Newtown as coach from 1966–68. In 2008, the centenary year of rugby league in Australia, Poole was named in the Newtown Jets 18-man team of the century.

Matches played

Team	Matches	Years	Points
Newtown	133	1950–58	168
Wests	31	1959–60	27
New South Wales	15	1954–1957	27
Australia (Tests & World Cup)	13	1955–1957	15

References

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

Sporting positions
Preceded by Col Geelan 1954	Captain-Coach Newtown Jets 1955–58	Succeeded by Charles Cahill 1959
Preceded by Allan Ellis 1962–1965	Coach Newtown Jets 1966–68	Succeeded by Harry Bath 1969–72

Persondata
Name	Poole, Dick
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	27 November 1930
Place of birth	Surry Hills, New South Wales
Date of death
Place of death