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| Full name | Walter Messenger | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 9 July 1891 Woollahra,New South Wales, Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 1 January 1961(1961-01-01) (aged 69) Clareville, New South Wales, Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Playing information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Position | Wing | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source:[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Relatives | Dally Messenger (brother) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Walter Messenger (9 July 1891 – 1 January 1961) was the youngest son ofCharles A. Messenger and Annie (née Atkinson). He was an Australianrugby league footballer who played in the 1910s and into the 1920s. He was a state and national representativewinger whose club career was played withEastern Suburbs in theNew South Wales Rugby Football League premiership.[2]
The younger brother of league greatDally Messenger, Wally Messenger won premierships with Easts inNSWRFL season 1912 andNSWRFL season 1913, playing with his brother as captain.[3]
He made two Test appearances forAustralia's National Rugby League team,The Kangaroos in the 1914 domesticAshes series, kicking three goals on debut and scoring atry in the deciding test of the series. He represented forNew South Wales in one match againstQueensland also in 1914.[4]
For the1915 season, he was theNSW Rugby Football League's top point-scorer. Wally Messenger is listed on theAustralian Players Register as Kangaroo No.93.[5]
Wally Messenger, the youngest of the eight children ofCharles Amos Messenger, was part of an "era of sporting achievement" of the Double Bay Public School. Both Wally and his older brother Dally (by seven years) were coached by an enthusiastic and dedicated teacher John Moclair, encouraged by principal Henry Giles Shaw (1891–1896). For many years they ensured that the Rugby team was undefeated in inter-schools competitions at Junior level. They quite often defeated teams from the Senior Schools competition as well, including a victory over the Fort Street High School, winners of the senior competition.[6][7]
In the course of history Wally Messenger's achievements have been somewhat eclipsed by the fame of his older brotherDally. Yet at the time of Wally's rugby league career Dally supported and lauded Wally's sporting development in every way he could.[2]: 57
Dally encouraged his seven years younger brother Wally, when he playedAustralian rules football at the Double Bay School, and in a local Australian rules competition in 1906, when Wally was sixteen.The Arrow described Wally "as nimble and as clever as footballers are made".[2]: 57
Wally then switched to Rugby League. On 18 May 1912 Wally entered first grade in an Eastern Suburbs match against South Sydney. The brothers played thereafter together at top level. Dally, normally the team's goal kicker, often shared the kicks with Wally.[2]: 301
"He is not as unorthodox as his brother," saidThe Referee, "but he has the power to field and kick the ball with infinitely greater skill than the average player".The Referee described Wally as having "infinitely greater skill than the average player. He is a strongly built tricky young man, and is very dangerous."[2]: 301 as quoted
Wally played two tests for Australia in 1914. Tragically,World War I (1914–1918) intervened and put a stop to his very promising football future. Dally is quoted as saying: "... given my opportunities, Wally would have been a world beater."[2]: 301
Wally Messenger was prominent in perhaps the most legendary game of Rugby League ever chronicled. It was described asRorke's Drift, an analogy to an outnumbered embattled group of British soldiers in Southern Africa who won a victory over a much larger and formidable army of Zulu warriors (1879).
It was the third Test Match of Australia versus Great Britain, played in Sydney on the 4 July 1914. Great Britain, playing three men short owing to a string of injuries, nevertheless, by heroic and fiercely resolute play, won the Test, 14 points to 6. On the Australian side Wally Messenger scored one of their two tries.[8]