Fights, Frenchmen and Flying Saucers

In the second extract of The Milk, the book, there's punch-ups, French champion Puig Aubert and a tour by some wacky Americans

Following the poorly named ‘Great War’, the Monaro’s first rugby league team formed in Hall and played one-off challenge matches against teams from Bungendore, Yass, Crookwell, Queanbeyan (the ‘Warrigals’) and the evocatively-named hamlet Grabben Gullen.

In 1927 they opened Parliament House, held a Canberra Show, and Hall beat Duntroon 11-2 in the final of the Territory and District League. In 1932 there was a larger competition, Group 8, in which Queanbeyan United, the mighty ‘Blues’, won the first of 26 premierships, knocking over Canberra 13-nil in a game The Canberra Times declared was “hard but fast and at times rugged.”

Early in the second half a Blues man known only as ‘McIntyre’ – whom we know today was George McIntyre, a professional runner and the brother of 17-year-old reserve grader and future Raiders founding father Les McIntyre – “caused a sensation”, according to The Canberra Times, when “right from the kick-off, he raced down the sideline and passed in field with [Wally] Pola waiting in support.”

The game then “developed its roughest play, and four players shaped up but were not caught by the referee,” reported The Times, which also praised “Mr Fry of Sydney” whose “crisp decisions and rigid commands freed the game from an element of roughness which was apparent occasionally in the second half.”