Gillett worth his place in rugby history
George Gillett has been done a disservice by history. Because he shared the wing-forward role in the 1905-06 All Blacks with the team's captain Dave Gallaher, most attention has featured on the skipper. But Gillett is worthy of kinder treatment.
Even Gallaher acknowledged that. He said Gillett was 'a good wing forward who could perform creditably in almost any back position'.
That versatility would almost see him excel when he switched codes to league, as many others did in the same era.
George Gillett - (pic - The Sportsman)
But his ascent was not meteoric. He started out in the primary schoolboy ranks at Hamilton East School and by the age of 15, in 1892 he was playing regularly for the Hamilton club's senior team. He worked his way into the Waikato team in three years, playing as a centre.
But he then moved to Thames to play for the Karangahake club where he was selected for the Thames representative side, a side good enough to beat Auckland in three consecutive seasons before the turn of the 20th Century.
He gained a place in the Auckland side in the last of those halcyon days for Thames in 1899. His brother Jack was a player-manager in the same side.
Travel called and Gillett left in 1900 for Kalgoorlie where he stayed for five years. Some sources claim he served in the Boer War but there is no mention of him on the Auckland Museum's online cenotaph, and Gillett did not mention it in his interview with The Sportsman. Because there was no rugby played, he took on Australian Rules. An unsubstantiated claim was made in the interview that he won a place in the Western Australia representative side in that code, but he said his fielding and kicking skills developed as a consequence of playing the game.
He returned to New Zealand in March 1905 and sensing a lack of opportunities to win exposure for consideration for the forthcoming All Blacks tour to Britain, Ireland and France, he moved back to Christchurch [he was born in Leeston] playing as a three-quarter and five-eighths for the Merivale club. His skill was soon obvious and he was included in the South Island team of that year as fullback to play what was a trial for the tour.
Gillett did well enough in the position to be chosen for the preliminary tour to Australia where he played all his games as fullback.
Returning from that tour the New Zealanders flirted with playing an eight forwards game instead of their usual seven men plus a wing-forward. Gillett played in the pack, and as a wing [the expression in those days being used to describe the wing-forward, or also a winger].
"His prowess in the latter position soon asserted itself, so he was chosen as an understudy to Gallaher as a winger."[1]
He played only nine games as the wing forward, and because of his versatility and injuries suffered by the side, he played in every backline position. In the four Test matches he played against Ireland as a wing forward, and against Scotland, England and Wales as fullback. So comfortable was he at fullback that Billy Wallace played three of the Tests on the wing.
Gillett told The Sportsman the All Blacks' success on their tour was the thorough understanding they developed of each other's play. He felt manager George Dixon was central to them achieving what they set out to do on the tour and they lived temperately.
"Much has been said in the light of the New Zealanders taking England unawares, but Gillett, without introducing the personal equation thinks the 'All Blacks' were incomparable.
"In all his experience – and he has played against the best in many countries, including Northern Union [league] teams which made the game their living – he never encountered a team that he could conscientiously place within twenty points of Wallace, Smith, Stead, Roberts, Seeling, and Co.
"England countributed to her own defeats by a lack of system in selection," The Sportsman said.
Gillett related that on their way to Britain a group of players had drawn up a probable England Test team and were surprised that only four of their selections made it.
"Wales was lucky to defeat New Zealand in Gillett's opinion. All the New Zealanders were weary, and only ten sound men faced Gwyn Nicholls and his comrades that day.
"Both Scotland and Ireland, whom the All Blacks defeated won from Wales later in the season."
Gillett rated Ireland's three-quarter Basil McLear highly.
"He was the best player, back or forward, who ever pulled on a jersey of a different colour to mine. I have never seen his equal. His weight and wonderful turn of speed assisted his unorthodoxy."
Gillett added, "W. 'Billy' Stead, of Southland, was another player who stood on a plane by himself. The five-eighths was the 'brains' of the All Black combination."
Others he singled out from the 1905-06 Originals were: fullback Billy Wallace, wing George Smith and centre Bob Deans, halfback Fred Roberts, lock Bill Cunningham and forwards Bronco Seeling and Alex McDonald.
He said Blackheath forward [B.C.] Hartley was the best forward he met in England. Gillett said he never rose beyond county honours but he had played two Tests, both against Scotland in 1901 and 1902. Hartley, who survived the First World War and was promoted to Major, later served on the Rugby Football Union and the International Rugby Board and managed the 1937 British and Irish Lions on their tour of South Africa.
After the Originals returned to New Zealand, Gillett went back to Karangahake and shook the foundations of Auckland rugby in 1906 when he and Cunningham brought a Goldfields team north to beat Auckland 14-11.
Back in Auckland in 1907 Gillett captained Ponsonby to claim the local competition while joining 12 others of the Originals to tour Australia. He captained Auckland against the 1908 Anglo-Welsh side and played two Tests against them while also saw Ponsonby win the Auckland championship again.
It was while seeing the Anglo-Welsh side off at Auckland Harbour that he and Bolla Francis dived into the water to save departing player Percy Down who, in his reluctance to let go of the hand of a local maiden, had fallen into the water. They kept him afloat until a rope could be thrown from the ship to secure him.
Before the year was out he played for the New Zealand Australian Rules side that played in the 1908 Melbourne Carnival.
In 1909, Ponsonby took on the best clubs in Sydney on a short tour, winning three of their four games (they beat Metropolitan 13-11, South Sydney 25-6 and Newtown, Sydney's champion side 14-6 and lost the third game, to Metropolitan 9-13). Gillett's 1905-06 teammate E.E. Booth was playing for the Newtown side and suffered a fractured collar-bone in the game.
J.C. Davis, who wrote under the nom-de-plume of Cynic in the Referee said Gillett's appearance in the Ponsonby side for their last game, against Newtown, proved crucial. They had lost their previous game but Cynic said, "Ponsonby felt that the backs were not fulfilling their parts satisfactorily; hence this football artist's appearance.
"Gillett played outer five-eighths, or, if you prefer it, the first of three centre three-quarters, with an occasional roving commission.
"His brainy, brilliant, almost meteoric, and skilful football in the first half lifted the backs of Ponsonby out of the commonplace groove into which they had fallen in the other matches. He made the openings with the skill of a champion.
"One has never seen any New Zealander play better all-round football and pull a side together as Gillett did in the first half of this game."
Gillett had not intended to play for Ponsonby on the tour and made the trip for the benefit of his health. He suffered an accident in Auckland two weeks before the team was due to leave, and when he arrived in Sydney, Davis said he looked anything but well. But when the backs in the team suffered so badly on the harder Sydney grounds that he decided to play. Bill Cunningham said the backs had not shown a glimpse of their true form in Sydney.
Gillett didn't play in 1910 due to farming commitments. And when he did pull on his boots again, it was to play league. He was selected in the Australasian team that toured England, although he played few games. But when he did play his judgement had not waned.
So well did he do that Leeds offered him a substantial fee to stay on as its coach. He returned to New Zealand and worked with one of the weakest Auckland teams, Newton Rangers. One of his prized possessions was the photograph he had of the side when it claimed the Auckland league championship.
His last representative game was when he captained Auckland against Wellington in 1912 to defend the English Northern Union Cup.
Much to the annoyance of the NZRU, Gillett then became an organiser for league and started the game in the Goldfields and Thames while rejuvenating the game in Wellington. He also coached the New Zealand team that played New South Wales in 1912.
He later said he preferred league to rugby because league players did not receive the gruelling they got in rugby.
He continued playing club league until 1914 finishing with four games for Ponsonby United. He also coached the newly-formed Remuera Rugby League club side.
Gillett wasn't finished with rugby as he was reinstated during World War One and was a Poverty Bay selector in 1917-18. He continued his association with Billy Stead and they coached a South Island Country Districts XV during the trials to select the 1928 team to tour South Africa.
Gillett died in Wellington in 1956.
[1] Sportsman, 5 September 1913