Howard Hallett

Infobox rugby league biography
playername = Howard Hallett
fullname = Howard Hallett
nickname = The Rock of Gibraltar


caption =
dateofbirth = 1880
placeofbirth =
countryofbirth =
dateofdeath = 1970
countryofdeath =
height =
weight =
position = Rlp|FB|CE
club1 = South Sydney
year1start = 1909–16, 1918–24
year1end =
appearances1 = 155
tries1 =
goals1 =
fieldgoals1 =
points1 = 133
teamA = New South Wales
yearAstart = 1909–1914
yearAend =
appearancesA = 17
triesA =
goalsA =
fieldgoalsA =
pointsA = 16
teamB = Australia
yearBstart = 1911–1914
yearBend =
appearancesB = 6
triesB =
goalsB =
fieldgoalsB =
pointsB = 3
coachteam1 = South Sydney
coachyear1start = 1925–1926
coachyear1end =
coachgames1 =
coachwin%1 =
coachpremierships1 =
updated =
source =
new = yes

Howard Hallett (1880–1970) was an Australian rugby league player and coach for the
South Sydney Rabbitohs in the New South Wales Rugby League premiership. Hallett primarily played at fullback. He represented for New South Wales and Australia and is considered one of the nation's finest footballers of the 20th century [ [http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/02/22/Controversy_reigns_as_NRL_releases_top_100_players Century's Top 100 Players] ]

Biography

Playing career

Hallett was originally an Australian rules footballer but was graded with Souths in 1908, the first season of rugby league in Australia and made his debut in the first-grade team in 1909.

Hallett was a playing member of three premiership-winning teams; 1909, 1914 and 1918. At the end of the 1914 season, Hallett was awarded a silver belt by the Sanderson Whiskey company as "Player of the Season".

Representative career

Hallett was first selected to play for New South Wales in 1911. In the same year he was selected to tour with the 1911–1912 Australasian Kangaroos, making his debut playing against the Northern Union at Newcastle as a centre and scoring his one and only test try. He played the remaining two tests at fullback.

Hallett toured with New South Wales to New Zealand in both the 1913 inaugural tour and 1914. Hallett's final year as a member of the national team was in 1914, when the Northern Union toured Australia.

Coaching career

Hallett retired from first-grade in 1924 and in 1925 he was back at Souths as coach. He coached the team through their only unbeaten season; twelve games. The final two games of the season were cancelled as Souths sat at the top of the ladder, ten points ahead of their nearest rival.

A four-team semi-finals series, along with other rule changes to speed up the game, was introduced in 1926 in an effort by the NSWRL to attract crowds back to the matches. Hallett once again coached his team to the top of the premiership ladder, with eleven points separating Souths from the Glebe Dirty Reds, and took the team on to win the first finals series.

Hallett retired from coaching at the end of the 1926 season. He died in 1970.

Accolades

In February 2008, Hallett was named in the list of Australia's "100 Greatest Players" (1908–2007) which was commissioned by the NRL and ARL tocelebrate the code's centenary year in Australia. [cite web|publisher="NRL & ARL"|title=Centenary of Rugby League - The Players
url=http://www.centenaryofrugbyleague.com.au/site/the-players.aspx?cat=3&list=true|accessdate=2008-02-23|date=2008-02-23]

Footnotes

References

* cite book | last=Whiticker, Alan and Hudson, Glen |title=The Encyclopedia of Rugby League Players |year=2007
publisher="Gary Allen Pty Ltd" |location=Wetherill Park, New South Wales |isbn=9781877082931 |pages=page 214
*cite book |last=Collis |first=Ian |coauthors=Whiticker, Alan |title=100 Years of Rugby League |publisher="New Holland" |date=2007 |location=Chatswood, NSW |volume=1 |isbn=9781741104639

External links

* [http://www.nrlstats.com/archive/players.cfm?PlayerID=1490 Howard Hallett (player) at "NRL Stats"]
* [http://www.nrlstats.com/archive/coaches.cfm?CoachID=61 Howard Hallett (coach) at "NRL Stats"]