Ted Fahey

Background

Fahey was born in Sydney, New South Wales and schooled at Street Joseph"s College, Hunters Hill.

Career

He was a state and national representative lock forward who made two international rugby tours and who captained the Wallabies on the 1913 Australia rugby union tour of New Zealand. He captained their Global Positioning System premiership winning XV of 1907 and the Combined Global Positioning System schoolboy representative side that same year. After school he joined the Eastern Suburbs Rugby Club in Sydney.

He would go on to become a stalwart for the club making 73 first-grade appearances over a twelve-year period interrupted by World War I. In 1914 redrawn catchment boundaries affecting the then applicable residential club eligibility criteria, forced Fahey to switch and play for the neighbouring Randwick Rugby Club.

He captained Randwick in 1914 and made 11 first-grade appearances for that club After the war when the Australian domestic rugby season restarted, Fahey had the difficult task of captaining Eastern Suburbs Rugby Club in that rebirth season of 1919 when the game struggled to capture a public interest which had turned more to rugby league in the intervening years.

He made his representative debut for New South Wales in 1910 appearing in two fixtures against a touring All Blacks side and two matches against the New Zealand Maori. In 1911 he played in both interstate fixtures against the Queensland with the Waratahs prevailing in each.

The tour was a disappointment with the squad billeted out in college fraternity houses where the hospitality played havoc with team discipline and as result the team lost against two California University sides and three Canadian provincial sides.

However Fahey returned with his reputation intact and became club captain for Easts in season 1913 and made further state appearances that year as well as touring with the Wallabies to New Zealand as vice-captain. He played in six of the nine tour matches and when tour captain Larry Dwyer was injured in the third match against Wanganui, Ted Fahey"s opportunity came to captain his country. He captained the Wallabies in the first two Tests in September 1913 and in a tour match against Southland.

He missed the 3rd Test through injury.

He made further representative appearances in 1914 when the All Blacks toured Australia playing for a metropolitan Sydney side, for New South Wales and for Australia in the sole Test of a tour which interrupted by the outbreak of the Great War. At the war"s end in 1919 Fahey captained a New South Wales and an Australian side in matches against an AIF team

All told Fahey made 25 international appearances for Australia including four Test cap appearances, two as captain. They were posted to the same unit which left Sydney in May 1916 on board HMAT A8 Argyllshire and saw service on the Western Front.

Ted was demobilised at the War"s end, returning to Sydney in December 1918.

Honours and awards.

Achievements

• British War Medal Victory Meda