Gerald Venables Kyrke was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 international 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...

 forward who played club rugby for Marlborough Nomads

Marlborough Nomads

The Marlborough Nomads was a 19th century rugby football club that was notable for being one of the twenty-one founding members of the Rugby Football Union, as well as producing a number of international players in the sport's early international fixtures....

 and was selected for the 1908 Anglo-Welsh

1908 British Lions tour to New Zealand and Australia

The 1908 British Isles tour to New Zealand and Australia was the seventh tour by a British Isles team and the fourth to New Zealand and Australia. The tour is often referred to as the Anglo-Welsh Tour as only English and Welsh players were selected due to the Irish and Scottish Rugby Unions not...

 tour of New Zealand and Australia.

Rugby career

Kyrke played much of his rugby with Marlborough Nomads, one of the earliest English rugby clubs, based in London. When Kyrke was offered a place on a tour with invitational team, the Barbarians

Barbarian F.C.

The Barbarian Football Club, usually referred to as the Barbarians and nicknamed the "Baa-Baas", is an invitational rugby union team based in Britain...

 in 1903 he was already a Nomads player, and was still with the club at the age of 26 when he was invited to tour with the 1908 Anglo-Welsh team. The Anglo-Welsh was an early incarnation of the British Lions

British and Irish Lions

The British and Irish Lions is a rugby union team made up of players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...

 and the 1908 team was assembled to tour New Zealand and Australia.

Kyrke played twelve games for the Anglo-Welsh team, including one Test Match. His first game for the team was on 25 May 1908, facing Wairarapa

Wairarapa Bush Rugby Football Union

The Wairarapa Bush Rugby Football Union was formed in 1971 with the amalgamation of the Wairarapa Rugby Football Union and Bush Rugby Football Union....

 on the opening game of the tour. He played in the First Test against New Zealand, but after a heavy defeat he was not chosen for the remaining two Tests of the tour. Despite this he continued to play against club and regional teams and scoring a try

Try

A try is the major way of scoring points in rugby league and rugby union football. A try is scored by grounding the ball in the opposition's in-goal area...

 in the encounter with a joint West Coast

West Coast Rugby Football Union

The West Coast Rugby Football Union, formed in 1890, is the official governing body for rugby union in a substantial part of the West Coast region of New Zealand and is affiliated to the New Zealand Rugby Union. The team is based in Greymouth and plays home matches at Rugby Park....

/Buller

Buller Rugby Football Union

The Buller Rugby Union is a rugby province based in the town of Westport, New Zealand. The Buller provincial boundary also includes other notable towns such as Reefton, Karamea, Granity, Charleston, Punakaiki and Murchison .-History:Buller was formed in 1894...

team in July. Although Kyrke toured with the Anglo-Welsh, he was never chosen to represent England.