Gary Stevens is an Australian former rugby league

Rugby league

Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...

 player, a hard tackling second-row forward

Rugby league positions

A rugby league football team consists of thirteen players on the field, with four substitutes on the bench. Players are divided into two general categories: "forwards" and "backs"....

 of the 1960s and 1970s for the South Sydney Rabbitohs

South Sydney Rabbitohs

The South Sydney Rabbitohs are an Australian professional rugby league football team based in Redfern, a suburb of South-central Sydney, New South Wales. They participate in the National Rugby League premiership and are one of nine existing teams from the state capital...

, the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs and Australian national representative side. He is the grandson of Souths club great Arthur Oxford

Arthur Oxford

Arthur Oxford was an Australian rugby league footballer, a state and national representative whose club career was played with the Eastern Suburbs Roosters and the South Sydney Rabbitohs from 1915 to 1929....

.

Club career

Stevens played 163 games with South Sydney between 1965 and 1976, scoring 12 tries. He played in the 1970 and 1971 victorious Rabbitohs

South Sydney Rabbitohs

The South Sydney Rabbitohs are an Australian professional rugby league football team based in Redfern, a suburb of South-central Sydney, New South Wales. They participate in the National Rugby League premiership and are one of nine existing teams from the state capital...

 Grand Final teams. A Souths junior, he was promoted to grade in 1964. He eventually captained Souths in 1976.

At the end of the 1976 season Stevens joined Canterbury-Bankstown with whom he played 26 games in 1977 and 1978.

Representative career

Stevens represented for Australia in five Test matches (1972–1975) and appeared six times for New South Wales (1972–1975). Stevens went on to play in the 1972 Australian World Cup

Rugby League World Cup

The Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league competition contested by members of the Rugby League International Federation . It has been held nearly once every 4 years on average since its inaugural tournament in France in 1954...

 campaign before touring Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 with the victorious 1973 Australian Kangaroos. He played against France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

in 1973 before representing Australia in two tests against the touring Great Britain side in 1974. The following year he was also selected in Australia's World Cup squad.

Sources

• The Encyclopaedia of Rugby League Players - South Sydney Rabbitohs, Alan Whiticker & Glen Hudson, Bas Publishing, 2005.