Tumbi Umbi resident and former Australian Rugby Union captain, Mark Ella, has officially been recognised as a Legend in the NSW Hall of Champions.
Ella was inducted at the NSW Champions of Sport Awards last week.
Widely recognised as not only one of the greatest rugby players that Australia has produced, but also one of the best that the world has seen, Ella was educated, along with brothers Glen and Gary, at Matraville High School.
The school’s first XV won the NSW Combined High Schools Waratah Shield in 1976 with all three Ellas playing, and again in 1977 with Mark leading the side.
All three brothers went on to play for the national team.
As Indigenous players, Ella said he and his brothers copped a fair bit of name calling during those high school years.
“We initially responded with our fists but we realised we were consistently winning and we could hurt them more on the scoreboard,” he said.
“We were a bit of a novelty – but we dominated rugby from an indigenous perspective – we were unique in that sense and we went through all of our high school playing years undefeated.”
A superbly gifted half-fly, Ella toured the UK with the famous Invincibles 1977 Australian Schoolboys side, which won all 19 matches.
He played club rugby for Randwick, guiding them to five consecutive Premierships between 1978 and 1982.
Ella came to the fore in senior representative sides in 1980 in a Man of the Match performance for Sydney in a stunning 13-all draw with the All Blacks and then for NSW in a tight loss to the tourists.
He debuted for Australia in the 1980 Bledisloe Cup when the Wallabies won a three-Test series against New Zealand for the first time in over 30 years to retain the trophy, with Ella figuring strongly.
In all, he played 25 times for Australia, 10 as captain, but is perhaps best known for his feats on the 1984 tour to Britain, where the Wallabies became the first Australian team to beat all four home nations.
Ella himself sees the Grand Slam tour as a career highlight.
“That last tour was probably the pinnacle for me,” he said.
“I scored a try in each of those four Tests.
“We were facing some great teams and some great players – I suppose I was in the right place at the right time.”
Ella is the first and only Indigenous player to captain the Wallabies.
In 1984, he stunned the rugby world by announcing his retirement just as he was reaching the pinnacle of the game.
In 1997, Ella was inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame and in 2005 became one of the original inductees to the Wallaby Hall of Fame.
Ella said he was honoured by the latest accolade.
“I haven’ played for a long, long time but I was delighted and it was a great night,” he said.
In 1991, Ella returned to Australia after a stint coaching in Italy and decided to make the Central Coast his home.
“My wife had a sister up here so we relocated and haven’t moved since,” he said.
Ella has enjoyed a huge media career since his retirement from playing and is now head of sport for NITV, Australia’s free-to-air Indigenous television station.
Terry Collins