Career
At the age of 13, Duggan played Stand-Office/Fly-half and captained Street Austin"s school but he didn"t play any further rugby until leaving school at 16 when he joined Wakefield Reconstruction Finance Corporation as a Winger. In the 1945/46 season, he scored three tries in four appearances. The following season saw fourteen tries in twenty two games. the 1947/48 season was his last amateur season, he played three games in 1947 scoring two tries.
He signed for Wakefield Trinity at Christmas 1947 when he was 18.
In his first full season for Trinity he made 28 appearances and scored seventeen tries, four of them in one game against Featherstone Rovers. The Wakefield Express described how he became a firm favourite with the Wakefield Trinity crowd for "his strong running, elusiveness and never say die temperament" In September 1949, he was selected to play for Yorkshire but had to withdraw having broken his nose in a game against Saint Helens.
Johnny Duggan played Right-wing, id est (that is) number 2, in Wakefield Trinity"s 17-3 victory over Keighley in the 1951 Yorkshire Cup final during the 1951-1952 season at Fartown Ground, Huddersfield on Saturday 27 October 1951. Johnny Duggan emigrated to New Zealand in the early 1950s, and began playing rugby union again, and on Saturday 19 July 1952 the Wakefield Express carried the headline, "Johnny Duggan to tour with New Zealanders?", in the article Johnny Duggan stated "I have filled in a form for reinstatement in a rugby union club and the Wanganui officials are backing me up.
If it comes through there is every likelihood of seeing me in England with the New Zealand touring team next season - at least, that is what the locals says who have been very impressed with my displays in practice", however he did not participate in the 1953-1954 New Zealand rugby union tour of Britain, Ireland, France and North America.
