Mr Tom Lawton

An outstanding five-eighth who was without peer at his peak, playing 44 times for the Australian Wallabies, including 14 Test matches, and captained the national side 10 times.

A schoolboy prodigy at Brisbane Grammar before serving in France in World War II in 1918, he returned home to make his debut for Queensland in 1919 – the last year before the game went into a nine-year hiatus from 1920-28. Moving to Sydney to study, he made his debut for NSW in 1920 and in ’22 went to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.

He was Oxford captain and a reserve for England in 1924, he then returned home and captained NSW in 1925. He was the standout performer on the 1927-28 tour of the British Isles, France and North America, playing 27 of the 31 games, including all five Tests, and topping the points list. It was said to be the beginning of “running rugby”.

He returned to Queensland in 1929 for the game’s resurrection, and in the same year, he captained Australia to a historic 3-0 clean sweep against New Zealand – the first time the All Blacks had suffered such a humiliating loss.

He was still captain of Queensland and Australia aged 33 in 1932 when he retired. Inducted into the Australian Rugby Hall of fame in 2007, his grandsons Tom Jnr and Rob also represented Australia.