Dally Messenger
Encyclopedia
- Not to be confused with the Australian author, Dally Raymond Messenger
Herbert Henry "Dally" Messenger (12 April 1883 – 24 November 1959) was an Australian rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
and rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
footballer, recognised as one of the greatest ever players in either code. Messenger, or 'The Master' as he was dubbed, represented his country in both rugby football codes, playing two rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
tests and seven rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
tests. He was also offered contracts by English soccer clubs, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, but refused them on the principle that soccer was decadent.
Messenger had a stocky build, and while standing only about 172 cm (5 ft 7') in height, he was a powerful runner of the ball and solid defender. According to his peers the centre's
Rugby league positions
A rugby league football team consists of thirteen players on the field, with four substitutes on the bench. Players are divided into two general categories: "forwards" and "backs"....
greatest attributes were his unpredictability and astonishing physical co-ordination, coupled with a freakish ability to kick goal
Field goal (rugby)
A drop goal, also referred to as a dropped goal or field goal, is a method of scoring points in rugby union and rugby league. A drop goal cannot be scored in open play by punting the ball, and instead must be scored by drop kicking the ball over the crossbar and between the uprights. After the...
s from almost any part of the ground. He was a teetotaller and non-smoker during his career and other than breakfast, Messenger would rarely eat before a match.
Early life
Messenger was born in the SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
waterfront suburb of Balmain, New South Wales
Balmain, New South Wales
Balmain is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Balmain is located slightly west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt....
, and grew up in another of Sydney's waterfront suburbs, Double Bay, where his father owned a boat shed. He also spent some time living with an aunt in South Melbourne, Victoria
South Melbourne, Victoria
South Melbourne is an inner city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 2 km south from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area are the Cities of Port Phillip and Melbourne...
, and he later recalled playing a game during this period which may have been "Victorian rules football".
In Sydney, Messenger attended Double Bay Public School in the city's eastern suburbs. It was here that he initially honed his rugby skills, while also playing cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
and indulging in his other great sporting love, sailing. Messenger worked, too, at his father's boat shed. By this juncture, he had gained the nickname of "Dally". It derived from a prominent politician of the 1880s, the then Attorney-General of New South Wales, William Bede Dalley
William Bede Dalley
William Bede Dalley was an Australian politician and barrister and the first Australian appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom...
, whose most conspicuous physical feature was a splendid pot belly — an anatomical augmentation that Herbert Henry Messenger happened to boast, too, when he was a small child. Fortunately, little Herbert Henry shed his pot belly as he grew older, together with the "e" from the spelling of his nickname.
Messenger first took up competitive rugby in 1900, playing for a local rugby union club called the Warrigals in a semi-social club competition.
Rugby union
Over the next few years Messenger continued to play with the Warrigals, persistently rejecting calls by officials of the Eastern Suburbs RUFCEastern Suburbs RUFC
The Eastern Suburbs Rugby Union Football Club is a team in the Shute Shield and the Tooheys New cup, the premier club rugby union football competition in New South Wales....
to move up to the higher standard of Sydney's grade competition.
In 1905 he finally began playing for Easts in the club's second-grade team, but showed sufficient promise to earn promotion to the first-grade side on two occasions that season. In that same season, he also purportedly played Australian rules football club in a number of first-grade matches in the Sydney competition.
Messenger began the 1906 season in first grade with Easts as a 'standoff' (five-eighth). He swiftly won a following amongst the club's supporters due to his mesmeric ball skills, cheeky tricks, blistering acceleration and accurate short- and long-kicking game off either foot. Messenger moved to what would become his customary position of centre following his selection there for the New South Wales team in 1906. By the time of his Wallaby debut in 1907, he had made that position his own.
In the book Viewless Winds, the 1906 representative footballer Paddy Moran
Herbert Moran
Herbert Michael "Paddy" Moran was an Australian rugby union player, a state and national representative flanker who captained the Wallabies' on their first overseas tour in 1908-09.-Early years:...
wrote that Messenger's play "was full of surprises, unorthodox, flash" and "directed largely by the unconscious mind". He said that Messenger "never became a slave to copybook practices" because his "instinct enabled him to see and take an opening in that operative second which is all-important". Moran compared him to Bradman
Donald Bradman
Sir Donald George Bradman, AC , often referred to as "The Don", was an Australian cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time...
in terms of their mutual ability to instantaneously co-ordinate their bodies into the right position in apparently ample time before the ball would arrive.
When talk of a professional rugby competition, or a Rugby League, was being aired, Messenger was instantly interested by the development. He was approached by a consortium that included Test cricketer, Victor Trumper
Victor Trumper
Victor Thomas Trumper was an Australian cricketer known as the most stylish and versatile batsman of the Golden Age of cricket, capable of playing match-winning innings on wet wickets his contemporaries found unplayable. Archie MacLaren said of him, "Compared to Victor I was a cab-horse to a Derby...
with friend J. J. Giltinan, who knew getting Messenger on board would be a major boost for the new code. He signed on with the new professional code in 1907. As the premier rugby footballer of the time, Messenger's signing is considered the integral moment in the substantiation of rugby league. After he became a rugby league player, Messenger's rugby games were struck from the record books of the New South Wales Rugby Union
New South Wales Rugby Union
The New South Wales Rugby Union is the organisation responsible for the sport of rugby union in most of the state of New South Wales, Australia...
and not restored for a 100 years.
Rugby league
It was in the North of England that Messenger became more acquainted with the new game. By the completion of the tour Messenger had topped the tour aggregates by more than 100 points.
On arrival back in Australia, Dally played with the Eastern Suburbs
Sydney Roosters
The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. The club competes in the National Rugby League and is one of the oldest and most successful clubs in Australian rugby league history, having won twelve New South Wales Rugby League...
club of the newly formed New South Wales Rugby Football League (NSWRFL), although a heavy representative schedule saw him play only a handful of matches for the club. Messenger's popularity helped showcase the new game and the NSWRFL took full advantage of this. In rugby league's first year, besides playing for his club, Messenger made representative appearances for Metropolis (Sydney), NSW
New South Wales rugby league team
The New South Wales rugby league team has represented the Australian state of New South Wales in rugby league football since the sport's beginnings there in 1907. Administered by the New South Wales Rugby League, the team competes in the annual State of Origin series against arch-rivals, the...
and Australia as well as for New Zealand
New Zealand national rugby league team
The New Zealand national rugby league team has represented New Zealand in rugby league football since intercontinental competition began for the sport in 1907. Administered by the New Zealand Rugby League, they are commonly known as the Kiwis, after the native bird of that name...
and, in one case, Queensland
Queensland rugby league team
The Queensland rugby league team have represented the Australian state of Queensland in rugby league football since the sport's beginnings there in 1908...
, he also represented Australasia
Australasia rugby league team
-1911-12:Following individual tours by New Zealand and Australia in 1907-08 and 1908-09 respectively, the Northern Rugby Football Union invited an 'Australasian' team to tour Great Britain during the 1911-12 season...
.
Following two heavy defeats, Messenger agreed to play for Queensland in a third match against New Zealand. The match ended in a 22 all draw with Messenger scoring nine of the 22 points. Towards the end of the season Messenger was again selected to tour England, this time with the first Kangaroos
1908/09 Kangaroo Tour of Great Britain
A Kangaroo tour is a rugby league tour of Great Britain and France by an Australia representative squad. Traditionally Kangaroo tours took place every four years and involved a three-Test Ashes series against Great Britain and a number of tour matches...
, or 'Pioneers'.
Messenger captained Australia in the first two tests of the tour, missing the third through injury. On tour Messenger was credited with numerous goals from the other side of half way, including one from the sideline on his own 25-yard line that appeared in earlier versions of the 'Guinness Book Of World Records' as measuring over 80 yards (73m). Another from over 75 yards is mentioned in an English newspaper under the heading 'A Wonderful Kick', ".
" Quite a sensation was caused at last Saturday's football match when Mr Messenger kicked the ball from the 75 yards' mark and secured a goal....."
In the second test Messenger is said to have scored one of the greatest individual tries ever witnessed in Test rugby league. At the end of the tour Messenger had again topped the aggregates, this time by just under 100 points.
Returning home from the tour with injury and following a hectic schedule over the past few years, he elected to sit out most of the 1909 season, playing in just a few representative matches towards the end of the year. Messenger also rejected an offer to play with English club, Warrington
Warrington Wolves
Warrington Wolves are a professional rugby league football club based in Warrington, England that competes in Super League. They play at the Halliwell Jones Stadium, having moved there from Wilderspool in 2003....
, during the Australian off-season that year.
Messenger was captain of Australia when they hosted the 1910 Great Britain Lions tourists
1910 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand
The 1910 Great Britain Lions tour of Australia and New Zealand was the first international tour of the Great Britain national rugby league team, "The Lions". They played the second ever Ashes series against Australia before travelling to Auckland to take on New Zealand...
.
The 1911 season was Messenger's finest. In 21 matches played he amassed a then record total of 270 points. In one interstate match for NSW he scored 32 points (from four tries and 10 goals). That record has only been equalled in recent years, with tries now being worth 4 points as opposed to 3. He amassed a total of 72 points for the three match series.
Recently married Messenger stood down from the 1911-12 Kangaroo Tour, leading his club Eastern Suburbs to its first premiership. In the semi-final that year against South Sydney
South Sydney Rabbitohs
The South Sydney Rabbitohs are an Australian professional rugby league football team based in Redfern, a suburb of South-central Sydney, New South Wales. They participate in the National Rugby League premiership and are one of nine existing teams from the state capital...
Messenger scored 20 of Easts'
Sydney Roosters
The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. The club competes in the National Rugby League and is one of the oldest and most successful clubs in Australian rugby league history, having won twelve New South Wales Rugby League...
23 points. For each of the three consecutive seasons 1910, 1911 and 1912 he was the NSW Rugby Football League's top point scorer.
After retirement from representative football, he led his side to a second premiership in 1912 and followed that with a third consecutive premiership in 1913. Easts were given permanent possession of the NSWRFL's first trophy, the Royal Agricultural Society Shield
Royal Agricultural Society Shield
The Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales Challenge Shield, or RAS Shield was the New South Wales Rugby Football League's first premiership trophy. It was presented to each year's premiership winning rugby league team and was won by South Sydney, Newtown and Eastern Suburbs. The first club...
. On announcement of his retirement, the Eastern Suburbs club presented the shield to Messenger in appreciation.
Life after football
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
s in Sydney and Manilla, New South Wales
Manilla, New South Wales
Manilla is a small town in New South Wales, Australia, located on Fossickers Way 45 kilometres northwest of the regional city of Tamworth. At the 2006 census, Manilla had a population of 2,081 people. Manilla is famous for its setting as a fishing and paragliding area...
and a banana
Banana
Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....
plantation in Mount Buderim, Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
. He later worked as a carpenter
Carpenter
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
in the NSW Department of Public Works.
None of his various business opportunities proved to be successful. In his later years, he lived in the New South Wales Rugby League
New South Wales Rugby League
The New South Wales Rugby League is the governing body of rugby league in New South Wales and is a member of the Australian Rugby League. It was formed in Sydney on 8 August 1907 and was known as the New South Wales Rugby Football League until 1984 when forward thinking marketing managers decided...
s Club. Messenger died in Gunnedah in 1959.
Accolades
The Courtney Goodwill Trophy, international rugby league's first trophy, was presented initially in 1936 and depicted Messenger, along with three other pioneering greats of the code, namely Jean GaliaJean Galia
Jean Galia was a French rugby union and rugby league footballer and champion boxer...
(France), Albert Baskiville (New Zealand) and James Lomas
James Lomas (rugby league)
James Lomas was a pioneering English rugby league footballer of the early 20th century. Hailing from Maryport, Cumberland, his career lasted for twenty-four years from 1899 to 1923. A three-quarter and prominent goal-kicker, Lomas captained the Great Britain national rugby league team.Lomas was...
(Britain).
The Dally M. Medal is awarded annually to Australian rugby league's best player, as judged by an expert panel of commentators, whose votes are tallied at the conclusion of each regular playing season. A stand at the Sydney Cricket Ground
Sydney Cricket Ground
The Sydney Cricket Ground is a sports stadium in Sydney in Australia. It is used for Australian football, Test cricket, One Day International cricket, some rugby league and rugby union matches and is the home ground for the New South Wales Blues cricket team and the Sydney Swans of the Australian...
has also named after Messenger, in recognition of his many outstanding games of club and representative football. In 2003 he was admitted into the Australian Rugby League
Australian Rugby League
The Australian Rugby League is the governing body for the sport of rugby league in Australia. It is made up of state bodies, including the New South Wales Rugby League and the Queensland Rugby League...
Hall of Fame.
In 2004, the Royal Agricultural Society Shield held by Messenger's family became part of the National Museum of Australia
National Museum of Australia
The National Museum of Australia was formally established by the National Museum of Australia Act 1980. The National Museum preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation....
collection.
In 2007, a century after he was shunned by rugby union for switching to rugby league for 180 pounds, his playing record was formally reinstated.
In February 2008, Messenger was named in a list of Australia's 100 greatest ever players (1908–2007) commissioned by the NRL
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...
/ ARL
Australian Rugby League
The Australian Rugby League is the governing body for the sport of rugby league in Australia. It is made up of state bodies, including the New South Wales Rugby League and the Queensland Rugby League...
to celebrate the code's Australian centenary year. Messenger went on to be named as an interchange player in Australian rugby league's Team of the Century
Australian Rugby League's Team of the Century
In late 2007, the Australian Rugby League and National Rugby League commissioned a college of 130 experts to select the 100 best rugby league players in the game's 100-year history in Australia...
. Announced on 17 April 2008, the team was a selection panel's majority choice for each of the 13 starting positions and four interchange players.
In 2008 New South Wales announced their rugby league team of the century also, naming Messenger on the wing.
Given Messenger's revolutionary impact on the rugby codes, his lasting fame, and the extraordinary degree to which he dominated his contemporaries on the field, some historians would go so far as to call him the finest player of them all. If he were playing today, however, because of the increased average size of footballers, he would probably be reinvented as a halfback (scrum-half). There is no reason to doubt that he would be just as brilliant in this position as he was at centre.
Messenger was immortalised in 2008 by a life-size bronze sculpture created by artist Cathy Weiszmann and erected outside the Sydney Football Stadium. The statue forms the second sculpture in an envisaged 10-part series for the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust's Basil Sellers Sports Sculptures Project.
External links
- Dally Messenger biography at Sport Australia Hall of Fame
- Australian Rugby League Hall of Fame
- A Personal History told by Dally Messenger III
- Death of The Master