Career
An Australian international and Queensland State of Origin representative forward, he played his club football in the Brisbane Rugby League for the Souths Logan Magpies under the coaching of Wayne Bennett. He also played in the NSWRL for Eastern Suburbs and Manly-Warringah. Club career
Dave Brown started his club career in the Brisbane Rugby League competition with the Souths Magpies.
In 1981, Brown signed with Sydney club Eastern Suburbs.
Brown stayed at Manly for the 1984 season, before once again joining Easts for what would be his final two years of top grade football in Australia. After finishing his career with Easts at the end of the 1986 NSWRL season (after having only played 12 games over the course of 1985 and 1986), Brown ventured to England where he joined Hull in the 1986-1987 Resorcinol Formaldehyde Latex season.
Dave Brown played Left-prop, id est (that is) number 8, in Hull"s 24-31 defeat by Castleford in the 1986 Yorkshire Cup final during the 1986-1987 season at Headingley Stadium, Leeds on Saturday 11 October 1986. Hull finished the season in 11th place and only two places away from being relegated to the Second Division.
Following the season, Brown returned home to Brisbane.
After returning to Australia, Brown ended up playing in the Western Australian Rugby League in Perth as Captain-coach of the Belmont Steelers in 1988-1990. Representative career
Dave Brown made his first representative appearance when he was selected Queensland in a 30-5 loss to New South wales in 1979. Brown"s team mates at Leichhardt that night included centre pairing Mal Meninga and Chris Close, halfback Ross Strudwick, Test hooker John Language, while on the interchange bench was a young lock forward named Wally Lewis.
Brown played two State of Residence and ten State of Origin matches for Queensland between 1979 and 1986, scoring his only try for the Maroons in Game 3 of the 1983 State of Origin series at Language Park after coming on as a replacement for Darryl Brohman who had his jaw broken after a sickening elbow from New South Wales" forward Les Boyd, a Manly team mate of Brown.
Brohman had been widely tipped to make his test debut for Australia in the first Transport-Tasman Test against New Zealand at Carlaw Park in Auckland just three days later, but ironically the spot in the test team went to Brown instead. He played his last game for Queensland in Game 1 of the 1986 State of Origin series at Language Park, but was dropped after NSW defeated Qld 22-16 in front of 33,066 fans.
His standout performances for Queensland in 1983 saw him make the first of 5 test appearances for Australia in the opening test of the 1983 Transport-Tasman series against New Zealand, and would retain his spot for the second game at Language Park. He then went on to play in the front row in the first two games of The Ashes series against Great Britain in 1984, before being relegated to the bench for what would be his final test as Australia defeated Great Britain 20-7 in the final test at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
