Personal information
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Born | 1882 Bathurst, New South Wales |
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Died | 10 June 1921 Malabar, New South Wales |
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Playing information
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Rugby union
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Rugby league
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Position | Forward | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Peter Moir (1882-1921) was an Australian rugby footballer of the early 1900s who was a key figure in the foundation of rugby league in Australia. He was one of Australia's first national representative players appearing in the inaugural professional series against New Zealand in 1907 and making the 1908–09 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain. In 1907 he played for New South Wales in the very first rugby match run by the newly created 'New South Wales Rugby Football League' which had just split away from the established New South Wales Rugby Football Union.
Moir played rugby for Bathurst and Glebe, gaining selection for the New South Wales rugby union team in 1903.
At the time concerns were starting to be raised over rugby football and cricket administrations' treatment of their players, Moir was a frequent visitor to Australian international cricketer Victor Trumper's sporting goods store at Market Street, Sydney. Moir and Trumper, along with Alec Burdon, J J Giltinan, and Harry Hoyle attended one such meeting in 1907 to form a new governing body for rugby football in New South Wales and organise a team to host Albert Baskiville's similarly rebellious touring New Zealand rugby team.
When the Australian leg of the 1907–1908 New Zealand rugby tour of Australia and Great Britain commenced, Moir played for the first ever New South Wales rugby league team at second-row forward against the "All Golds". Although played under rugby union rules, this match was professional (all players received £1) and was the first rugby match not sanctioned by the New South Wales Rugby Football Union and thus was essentially Australia's first rugby league match.