Herbert Henry "Dally" Messenger (12 April 1883 – 24 November 1959) was an Australian rugby league and rugby union footballer. One of Australia's first professional rugby footballers, he is recognised as one of the greatest-ever players in either code. He played for New South Wales in the first match run by the newly-created New South Wales Rugby Football League, which had just split away from the established New South Wales Rugby Football Union.
Sometimes nicknamed "The Master", Messenger had a stocky build, and while standing only about in height, he was a powerful runner of the ball and a solid defender. According to his peers, the centre's greatest attributes were his unpredictability and astonishing physical co-ordination, coupled with an ability to kick goals from almost any part of the ground. He was a teetotaller and non-smoker during his career and other than breakfast, Messenger would rarely eat before a match.
Early life Messenger was born in the Sydney waterfront suburb of Balmain, New South Wales, and grew up on the southern shores of Sydney Harbour at Double Bay, where his English-born father, Charles Amos Messenger, a champion sculler, owned a boat shed.
Dally's grandfather James Messenger was barge-master to Queen Victoria on the River Thames, world champion sculler (1854-57) and a highly regarded boat-builder, including the Lady Alice for Henry Morton Stanley's second African expedition.
As a boy Messenger also spent some time living with an aunt in South Melbourne, Victoria where he attended the Albert Park Public School. It was there he recalled playing Australian Rules Football. He credited skills he learned at Albert Park as contributing to his later success at Rugby Union and Rugby League. Dally was one of eight children. His younger brother by seven years, Walter (Wally) also became an Australian representative rugby league footballer.
In Sydney, Messenger attended Double Bay Public School in the city's eastern suburbs. It was here that he initially honed his rugby skills, while also playing cricket and indulging in his other great sporting love, sailing. Messenger worked, too, at his father's boat shed. By this juncture, he had gained the nickname of "Dally". It derived from a prominent politician of the 1880s, the then Attorney-General of New South Wales, William Bede Dalley, whose most conspicuous physical feature was a splendid pot belly – an anatomical augmentation that Herbert Henry Messenger happened to boast, too, when he was a small child. Fortunately, little Herbert Henry shed his pot belly as he grew older, together with the "e" from the spelling of his nickname.
Rugby union
Messenger first took up competitive rugby in 1900, playing for a local rugby union club called the Warrigals in a semi-social club competition. Over the next few years Messenger continued to play with the Warrigals, persistently rejecting calls by officials of the Eastern Suburbs RUFC to move up to the higher standard of Sydney's grade competition.Whiticker pp25-28 In 1904. aged 21, Messenger played no football at all. He decided to spend this year working for the Messenger family boatbuilding business in Double Bay.
In 1905 Messenger began playing for Easts in the club's second-grade team, but showed sufficient promise to earn promotion to the first-grade side on two occasions that season. In that same season, he also purportedly played Australian rules football club in a number of first-grade matches in the Sydney competition.
Messenger began the 1906 season in first grade with Easts as a 'standoff' (five-eighth). He swiftly won a following amongst the club's supporters due to his mesmeric ball skills, cheeky tricks, blistering acceleration and accurate short- and long-kicking game off either foot. Messenger moved to what would become his customary position of centre following his selection there for the New South Wales team in 1906. By the time of his Wallaby debut in 1907, he had made that position his own.
In his book Viewless Winds, the 1906 representative footballer Paddy Moran wrote that Messenger's play "was full of surprises, unorthodox, flash" and "directed largely by the unconscious mind". He said that Messenger "never became a slave to copybook practices" because his "instinct enabled him to see and take an opening in that operative second which is all-important". Moran compared him to Bradman in terms of their mutual ability to instantaneously co-ordinate their bodies into the right position in apparently ample time before the ball would arrive.Moran, Herbert (1939) Viewless Winds
When talk of a professional rugby competition, or a Rugby League aligned with the 1895-founded Northern Rugby Union in England, was being aired, Messenger was instantly interested by the development. He was approached by a consortium that included Test cricketer, Victor Trumper with friend J. J. Giltinan, who knew getting Messenger on board would be a major boost for the new code. Messenger was star attraction in a NSW Waratahs match against New Zealand All Blacks that drew an enormous crowd of 52,000, which as the highest attendance and gate-takings ever yet seen in any cricket or football (of any code) match in Australia, created further debate about the rugby union players not receiving any remuneration. Messenger signed on with the new professional code on Sunday 11 August 1907. As the premier rugby footballer of the time, Messenger's signing is considered an integral moment in the foundation of rugby league.Australian Dictionary of Biography "Dally Messenger"
Upon signing he became a professional rugby league footballer, leading to Messenger being disqualified by the New South Wales Rugby Union and his name was struck from their record books, until being restored 100 years later.
Rugby league with the New Zealand "All Golds", 1907-08
Messenger played in the rebel series against a professional New Zealand team, the 'All Golds' as they were referred to, and was invited to tour England with the New Zealand professional side. It remains unclear whether this was a result of the form he showed in the series or if it had been agreed on as part of his sign-on fee with the new code. It was said, and believed as Messenger family folklore for years, that the signing of Messenger to rugby league was negotiated with Messenger's mother Annie, and the promised amount for playing, at first, in three All Golds' games, was 50 pounds (based on increases in average earnings, this would be approximately £18,210 in 2015).
In the North of England, Messenger became more acquainted with the new game. By the completion of the tour Messenger had topped the tour aggregates by more than 100 points.
The 1908 inaugural rugby league season
On arrival back in Australia, Messenger played with the Eastern Suburbs club of the newly formed New South Wales Rugby Football League (NSWRFL), although a heavy representative schedule saw him play only a handful of matches for the club. Messenger's popularity helped showcase the new game and the NSWRFL took full advantage of this. He was selected to play in the first ever trans-Tasman test, which was the debut match of the Australia national rugby league team. In rugby league's first year, besides playing for his club, Messenger made representative appearances for Metropolis (Sydney), New South Wales and Australia, as well as for New Zealand and, in one case, Queensland, he also represented Australasia. Following two heavy defeats, Messenger agreed to play for Queensland in a third match against New Zealand. The match ended in a 22–22 draw, with Messenger scoring nine points.
The 1908 Interstate rugby league series saw the first ever match between New South Wales and Queensland and Messenger scored a goal for the Blues in their 43-0 victory over the Maroons in Sydney. During the 1908 New Zealand Māori rugby league tour of Australia Messenger was selected to play for New South Wales and Sydney against the tourists.
The Pioneer Kangaroos 1908-1909
Towards the end of the 1908 season Messenger was again selected to tour England, this time with the first Kangaroos, or 'Pioneers'. He is listed on the Australian Players Register as Kangaroo No. 10.
Having toured with the New Zealand professional team the previous year, Messenger was well known in the North of England and on arrival attained celebrity status. Placards bearing the words 'Messenger Will Play' were erected outside of grounds. Messenger was offered contracts by leading association football clubs, including Celtic, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur, but refused them.
Messenger captained Australia in the first two tests of the tour, missing the third through a knee injury incurred after regular field goal attempts. On tour Messenger was credited with numerous goals from the other side of half way, including one from the sideline on his own 25-yard line that appeared in earlier versions of the 'Guinness Book of World Records' as measuring over 80 yards (73m). Another from over 75 yards is mentioned in an English newspaper under the heading 'A Wonderful Kick' "." Quite a sensation was caused at last Saturday's football match when Mr Messenger kicked the ball from the 75 yards' mark and secured a goal....." In the second test Messenger is said to have scored one of the greatest individual tries ever witnessed in Test rugby league. At the end of the tour Messenger had again topped the aggregates, this time by just under 100 points.
Club season 1909 Returning home from the tour with injury and following a hectic schedule over the past few years, he elected to sit out most of the 1909 NSWRFL season, playing in just a few representative matches towards the end of the year. Messenger also rejected an offer to play with English club, Warrington, during the Australian off-season that year. Messenger was captain of Australia when they hosted the 1910 Great Britain Lions tourists.
Club Seasons 1910-1913 The 1911 season has been acclaimed as Messenger's greatest. In 21 matches played he amassed a then record total of 270 points. In one interstate match for NSW he scored 32 points (from four tries and 10 goals). That record has only been equalled in recent years, with tries now being worth 4 points as opposed to 3. He amassed a total of 72 points for the three match series.
The Coronation of King George V took place on Thursday, June 22, 1911. There were festivities all around Australia. The prevailing mood at the time was one of kindness, and the Sydney Cricket Ground hosted the first Rugby League match there between New South Wales and New Zealand. Dally became the first captain to lead a Rugby League side onto the SCG as he led his team onto this holy ground.
Recently married Messenger stood down from the 1911–12 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain, leading his club Eastern Suburbs to its first premiership. In the semi-final that year against South Sydney Messenger scored 20 of Easts' 23 points. For each of the three consecutive seasons 1910, 1911 and 1912, he was the NSWRFL's top point scorer. In 1911 he overtook Arthur Conlin's record for the most points scored in an NSWRFL (101); Messenger's eventual total of 379 stood as the new career record until it was bettered by Harold Horder in 1918.
After retirement from representative football, he led his side to a second premiership in 1912 and followed that with a third consecutive premiership in 1913. Easts were given permanent possession of the NSWRFL's first trophy, the Royal Agricultural Society Shield. On announcement of his retirement, the Eastern Suburbs club presented the shield to Messenger in appreciation.
Career Postscripts 1914 He was awarded Life Membership of the New South Wales Rugby League in 1914.Referee, Sydney Life Members of the NSWRFL - 13 May 1914, (Page 12)