kangaroo tour 1986

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The unbeatables: 1986 kangaroo tour 30-year anniversary.

Winner drawn every Friday at 11am. Promotion ends April 12th, 2024.

Thirty years ago this month, the 1986 Australian team left to tour England and France, captained by Wally Lewis and coached by Don Furner.

They were following in the footsteps of the 1982 team, who had become the first ever Australian team to go through the tour undefeated. The 1986 team repeated the feat, winning all 20 matches on the two-month tour, including three Test matches against Great Britain and two against France.

Over the years, comparisons between both teams have inevitably been made. Because they were only four years apart, it’s a fair comparison, and five players went on both tours – Brett Kenny, Wally Lewis, Mal Meninga, Gene Miles and Peter Sterling.

In 1986, 28 players were in the squad, with 20 playing in at least one of the five Test matches. A sign of the strength of the 1986 team was that Mal Meninga was a bench player in two of the three Ashes Tests against Great Britain, and was picked out of position in the second row for the third.

Below is a list of all players used across the five Test matches on both the 1986 and 1982 tours.

1986 Fullback: Garry Jack Wingers: Michael O’Connor, Dale Shearer, Les Kiss Centres: Brett Kenny, Gene Miles Five-eighth: Wally Lewis Halfback: Peter Sterling Lock: Bob Lindner Second rowers: Bryan Niebling, Noel Cleal, Steve Folkes Props: Greg Dowling, Steve Roach, Paul Dunn Hooker: Royce Simmons

Reserves: Terry Lamb, Mal Meninga (also started one Test against Great Britain in the second row), Les Davidson, Paul Sironen. Note that only two reserves were allowed in the 1980s era and once a player was replaced, that was the end of their match.

1982 In 1982, there were also 28 players in the squad, with 19 playing in at least one of the five Test matches. The team was captained by Max Krilich and coached by Frank Stanton.

Fullback: Greg Brentnall Wingers: Eric Grothe, Kerry Boustead, John Ribot Centres: Mal Meninga, Steve Rogers Five-eighth: Brett Kenny Halfback: Peter Sterling Locks: Ray Price, Wayne Pearce (also played two Tests in the second row) Second rowers: Rod Reddy, Paul McCabe Props: Les Boyd, Craig Young, Rod Morris Hooker: Max Krilich

Reserves: Wally Lewis (also started one Test against France), Ray Brown, Steve Ella

There is no doubt there were both champion teams, but for those that remember getting up in the middle of the night to watch the Tests on those legendary tours, which team would put your money on in a fantasy match up?

Reckon you can pick the winning team?   Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match.  For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp .  Imagine what you could be buying instead.  Set a deposit limit.

Team Sport Australia Award | 2007

Rugby League

Like Don Bradman’s cricket immortals in 1948, Wally Lewis’s 1986 Kangaroos completed a tour of England undefeated, including victories by comfortable margins in all three Tests. To ensure immortality they also chalked up two commanding victories over France.

Competition Kangaroos Test Tour

Captain Wally Lewis was Captain of the 1986 Kangaroos Rugby League Team.

From the archives: 1986 Kangaroo Tour

As this weekend’s england vs australia four nations test approaches, we re-visit how three rugby league legends discussed the 1986 kangaroo tour of great britain and france in their various books published in the years immediately following the tour..

Old sports books are a treasure trove of players’ thoughts and feelings about all sorts of stuff. A popular subject for rugby league player/authors a few decades back was the famous 1986 Kangaroo Tour of Great Britain and France.

Like most old-school rugby league fans, the author of this online article has over the years accumulated a fine collection of rugby league books, dating back to the explosion in the genre in the 1980s. To this day such books can still be found at garage sales, one-buck-bins and can be bought online for almost nothing.

It’s 30 years since the ’86 Kangaroos flew over and backed-up the achievements of coach Frank Stanton and captain Max Krilich’s legendary 1982 “Invincibles”. The 1986 squad needed a nickname of its own. One was thought up pretty much straight after the Kangaroos had won their last game against France: “The Unbeatables.” In 20 matches they scored 136 tries and conceded only 16. Youngster Terry Lamb played every game on the 1986 Tour. He’d likely laugh at modern players’ complaints about being overworked. Anyway, here are a few stories found within the pages of three all-time classic rugby league books discussing life on the 1986 Kangaroo Tour.  

WALLY LEWIS Wally, Gene Miles, Steve Roach and Royce Simmons had pooled their resources and bought and ancient yellow Saab. It cost them 200 pounds and Wally took a gang for a run to his old lodgings at Wakefield Trinity. The car seemed very sluggish, until Wally added up the weight of the seven players on board – Miles, Kenny, Kiss, Sironen, Simmons, Roach and Wally: around 660kg, two-thirds of a tonne of prime beef.

WALLY’S DIARY - 23 October: “Trained twice. Dinner at Pizza Hut. Car wouldn’t start on way home. Had to push it. Picked up ‘Gorky Park’ video, but video wouldn’t work. Folkes cleaned heads with aftershave lotion. Video chewed up 20 feet of tape. Alas no more videos. Down to the casino instead. Peter Sterling led the charge, won 1000 pounds. Geno won 750, Royce Simmons lost 20.” King Wally , by Adrian McGregor, 1987, Queensland University Press

PETER STERLING "The First Test of ’86, at Old Trafford, was a sensational occasion. It was the day I almost wore the boots of the Great Manchester United soccer player Bryan Robson in a rugby league Test! As I went to put my boots on for the match, I noticed they were an odd pair; one was laced one way and the other completely differently. One of the boots was a size too big – and I couldn’t have played in it. I had a problem – so they took me into the Manchester United boot room, an amazing place containing more football boots than you’ve ever seen in your life. There, I tried on a pair of Bryan Robson’s boots, and, as with Cinderella, they fitted perfectly! But when I went back into the Aussie change room, Michael O’Connor realised he had the same problem as me – two different boots. So we swapped boots, and Robson’s boots missed their chance of playing rugby league." Sterlo – The Story Of A Champion, with Ian Heads, 1989, Lester-Townsend Publishing

GREG ALEXANDER "The wonderful record of the ’86 Kangaroos can never be denied, but it must be kept in perspective. It has to be said that the opposition was not of a high standard. The Poms had some fine individual players in Hanley, Ward, Lydon, Gregory, Schofield and so on – but the teams we faced were generally disorganised in attack and had no idea in defence. If individual brilliance failed against us, the Englishmen would usually resort to niggling tactics to try to put us off our game." Five-Star Brandy , with Larry Writer, 1991, Ironbark Press

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