George Piggins

George Leslie Piggins AM (born 14 October 1944) is an Australian rugby league personality. He is a former player, coach and administrator of the South Sydney Rabbitohs club. Following their exclusion from the National Rugby League premiership at the end of the Super League war, Piggins also successfully led the Rabbitohs' battle for re-inclusion in the NRL in the early 2000s. Since 2003, the "George Piggins Medal" has been awarded annually to South Sydney's player of the year.

Once a wharf labourer from the Southern Sydney suburb of Mascot, Piggins played the game as a hooker. He established himself in the NSWRFL Premiership's first grade in 1967 but was left out for Elwyn Walters in the finals and took several years to re-establish himself. In 1971 Piggins played a superb game in the grand final when Walters was injured and late the following year finally established a permanent first grade berth for good. In 1974, with Walters leaving for Easts, Piggins advanced so much that he played for New South Wales and the following year, despite Souths finishing last after winning only two of their last sixteen games, Piggins' toughness saw him represent Australia three times in the 1975 World Series. The following year, he scored a memorable bustling try (one of only eight in 120 first grade games) against the Western Suburbs Magpies and again played for New South Wales. With injuries catching up, however, Piggins retired at the end of 1978, but his experience and the skill of coach Jack Gibson that season was an important precursor for the Rabbitohs reaching the semi-finals in 1980 after winning only one of their last eighteen games in 1977.