History reveals inconsistencies in jersey numbers

Wallaby legend David Campese has stirred The Roar pot lately. Firstly, he suggested very few modern players would have made it in his day.

This created a suitable bushfire among the younger generation, which was fueled by David Lord when he argued only two current players would make a composite Wallaby team of the past 28 years.

However, while I might wade into this discussion another day, what caught my eye was the persistent argument that Campo was predominately a left-winger. He wasn’t.

Campo played in three jerseys during his Wallaby career – 15, 14 and 11. He played 101 tests for Australia and scored 64 tries. This much of course, most people know.

Of his 101 tests, 16 were at fullback and 85 on the wing. But this is where it gets murky.

Campo made his test debut in 1982 against the All Blacks on the left wing wearing number 11. He was a replacement for the great left-winger Brendan Moon, who had declared himself unavailable.

This above piece of info is relevant, so hang onto it.

When Moon returned to the national team in 1983-86 he regained the left-wing and no.11, while Campo mostly played right wing and number 14.

In 1987, with Moon injured and retired, Campo reverted to playing mostly on the left-wing and number 14, and occasionally at fullback. The right-wing was shared by Peter Grigg and Matt Burke.

When Bob Dwyer regained the Wallabies coaching role in 1988, Campo continued to play the left-wing with Ian Williams on the right, following the move of Burke to league and Grigg into retirement.

When Campo’s pass to Greg Martin was dropped in the ingoal against the Lions in 1989, this occurred on the left side of the Australian field. Lions right-winger Euen Evans raced through to touch down.

Sometime in 1990 or 91, Campo reverted back to the right wing. Indeed, he played both the 1991 and 95 World Cups on the right wing, as well the years in between.

Campo requested from his coach, and his wish was given, that he play every remaining test in the number 11 jersey, irrespective of which wing he was on.

Campo was obviously a sentimental soul, as number 11 was the first Wallaby jersey he wore.

At the 1991 World Cup, Campo was held short of the line in the quarter-final. His flick pass behind was picked up off the ground by Michael Lynagh who scored with no time left. This happened in the right corner.

Campo’s “hail mary” pass to Tim Horan in the semi-final happened on the right side of the field.

His brilliant individual try in this same match saw him run diagonally from off his right wing to touch down in the left corner.

In 1992, I have a photo of Campo diving across the line for his 50th try, against the Boks, wearing the number 11 shirt. This happened in the right corner.

Also in 1992, when the other Wallaby winger Paul Carozza had his nose smashed by Richard Loe after scoring a try, this happened on the left-side.

In 1994, Jeff Wilson stepped around Damian Smith and was about to score the winning try for the All Blacks, before George Gregan knocked it out of his grasp.

Smith was Australia’s left-winger and Wilson NZ’s right-winger.

A Roarer recently brought up the incident at the 1995 World Cup pool game whereby Boks winger Pieter Hendricks waved at Campo as he crossed for a try. Hendricks was the Boks left-winger and Campo the Wallabies right winger.

It would take some keen detective work to work out exactly how many tests Campo played on each wing, but I suspect he played on the right wing 40-60 percent of the time.

In any case, when discussing all-time teams, the beauty of Campo is that he can be chosen on either wing, since he played often enough on each.

So if you thought hopping onto this website would give you the definitive answers as to which players lined up in which positions, it isn’t always cut and dried.

Here’s another example – out of the famous English centre pairing of Will Carling and Jeremy Guscott, who played inside and who played outside?

Trawling the history books won’t help but only confuse you more.

Will Carling ,the inside centre, wore the number 13 jersey, while Jeremy Guscott, the outside centre, wore the number 12 jersey.

Why? Because Guscott was superstitious, and didn’t want to wear number 13. Carling, who wasn’t superstitious, was therefore happy to swap numbers.

Here’s yet another example – against the grain of most other countries, the Springboks have their flankers the other way around.

Their openside flanker wears number six, while their blindside flanker wears number seven. This is different to most other countries.

The Boks winning captain of 1995 Francois Pienaar – once photographed with Nelson Mandela with both wearing his famous number six jersey – was actually the openside flanker, while Ruben Kruger, wearing number seven, was the blindside flanker.

It took me some cross-reading to finally convince myself that of the famous Boks flankers of the 60s – Jan Ellis and Piet Greyling – Ellis was the openside and Greyling the blindside.

The use of numbers, and their consistency of use, has taken a long time to come about. It was only in 1992/93 that the standardisation of numbers occurred.

But the Boks, as we see above, continue to number their flankers differently. And certain individuals will probably continue to do the same.

Replacements numbers (16-22) originally started at fullback and went to hooker before reversing as they do now, starting at hooker (16) to fullback or outside back 22.

Numbers were apparently first worn in a New Zealand versus Queensland game in 1897. New Zealand wore 1-15 and Queensland 16-30.

In the 1920s, the home unions began wearing numbers in internationals, but the practice didn’t become common until after WW2.

For example, in 1928, in a match between England and Scotland, a spectating King George V enquired as to why the Scottish players weren’t numbered like their English counterparts.

James Aikman Smith, president of the then SFU, pompously replied that “this, Sir, is a rugby match not a cattle sale”.

In the 1950s and 60s, although numbering had became widespread, different countries followed different systems.

France and Ireland adopted the system that would eventually become universal, with loosehead as number one and fullback as number 15. But New Zealand and Australia had loosehead as number 15 and fullback as number one.

Meanwhile, England, Scotland, Wales and South Africa had loosehead as number eight, the eightman as no.15 or 14, while the backs numbered seven from halfback to one for fullback.

It wasn’t until until 1967 that the numbering system mostly in use today was finally agreed upon.