Dennis Tutty

Dennis Tutty is an Australian former professional rugby league player and coach in the

New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) competition who also represented for Australia. He was also a champion rower. In the 1970s, Tutty won a landmark court case which removed trade restraints on rugby league players. Tutty primarily played at lock.

Tutty is the brother of international sculler Ian Tutty and cousin of Australian rugby league international Reg Gasnier.

The youngest son and second youngest child of a motor mechanic, Tutty was raised in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney. His secondary education was at Ibrox Park Boys High School and he left school after obtaining his Intermediate Certificate at the end of Year 9. At school he played a number of sports including Rugby League representing the school and the school's sports zone at various levels including in a curtain raiser to an international match in 1962.

After leaving school he joined the Leichhardt Wanderers Junior League Football Club in 1963 a junior team located in the area covered by the Balmain club.

Like his older brother, Tutty rowed for the (then) Haberfield Rowing Club and rowed at number 5 in the New South Wales eight that won Kings Cup in 1965.

Tutty was graded to Balmain in 1964 at the age of seventeen. He became the youngest player to ever appear in a grand final when Balmain met St. George at the end of that season. He played ostensibly as an amateur so that he could continue to compete in what was then the strictly non-professional sport of rowing.

In 1967, Tutty was selected to play in his only Test appearance, against New Zealand in the first Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground.