1932 Great Britain Lions tour
| 1932 Great Britain Lions tour | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manager | G.F. Hutchins and R.F. Anderton | ||||
| Tour captain(s) | Jim Sullivan | ||||
| Summary |
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| Total |
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| Test match |
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| Opponent |
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| Australia |
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| New Zealand |
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| Tour chronology | |||||
| Previous tour | 1928 | ||||
| Next tour | 1936 | ||||
| P | W | D | L |
|---|
| 26 | 23 | 1 | 2 |
|---|
| 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 |
|---|
| P | W | D | L |
|---|
| 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
|---|
| 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
|---|
The 1932 Great Britain Lions tour was a tour by the Great Britain national rugby league team of Australia and New Zealand which took place between May and August 1932. The tour involved a schedule of 26 games, 18 in Australia including a three-test series against Australia for the Ashes and a further 8 in New Zealand including a three-test series against New Zealand.
Captained by Welshman Jim Sullivan the Lions returned home having won 23, lost 2 and drawn 1 of their games. They won the Ashes against Australia 2–1 and made a clean sweep against New Zealand winning all three test matches.
Despite being a British team - 6 of the squad were Welsh - the team played as, and were universally referred to by both the press at home and away, as England.
A 26 man squad was selected for the tour with the names announced in March 1932.
The two team managers were G.F. Hutchins of Oldham and R.F. Anderton of Warrington.
The team sailed from Southampton on 14 April 1932 on-board the SS Jervis Bay arriving in Melbourne on 19 May and travelling to Sydney by train on 20 May.
Following the end of the third test against New Zealand, the team sailed for home the same day on-board the SS Tamaroa, having readied for the last test on the ship, arriving back in Southampton on 23 September 1932.
During the Australian leg of the tour the team scored 105 tries and 84 goals (483 points) while conceding 32 tries and 38 goals (172 points), total attendances approaching 320,000 generated gate receipts of A£27,885. In the games in New Zealand the team scored 65 tries and 52 goals (299 points) conceding 17 tries and 18 goals (87 points).
The first test was played at Sydney Cricket Ground on Monday 6 June 1932. The interest in the game was so large that the ground was full an hour before the kick-off and the police ordered the gates to be closed. Several thousand people watched from the stands in the adjacent agricultural ground and many more watched from any vantage point they could find.
The referee was former Australian player turned match official William Neill. A ceremonial kick-off was made by retired player Dally Messenger. England scored first as Alf Ellaby ran a try in from the English 25 yard (20 metre) line, Jim Sullivan missed the conversion. Australia took the lead through two penalties both taken by Eric Weissel before England scored another try, this time scored by Arthur Atkinson. Sullivan was successful with the conversion giving England an 8–4 lead. Weissel scored another penalty before half time to make the score 8–6 in England's favour. The second half was scoreless although both sides had chances which weren't taken.
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