Yarn from
The Great Rugby League Publication
Rugby League Journal
Year of Story -
Submitted 22/12/2005
Also see Memorable Matches
No23 for more about this game
The Battle of the Boulevard
Nov 1951
France (world Champions) v Other Nationalities.
In the latest issue of "Rugby League Journal" recounts the
titanic battle that took place in the City of Hull in November 1951
- the game that was known as:
The Battle of the Boulevard
It was one of the most infamous Rugby League international matches
ever played on English soil, yet it did not involve a British team.
On a Saturday afternoon in November 1951, the city of Hull staged
a match between France and the Other Nationalities - a fierce and
fiery encounter that has gone down in the folklore of the game as
"The Battle of the Boulevard."
It brought together the Other Nationalities team of largely Australians
against a French side playing their first match since returning
from their sensational first tour down-under. The Aussies who had
left their home land to play for English clubs in the early post-war
years liked nothing better than to come together and wear the bottle-green
jerseys of the Other Nationalities - and this encounter against
the brilliant but volatile French team, the world champions of the
time, provided an extra special incentive for them to succeed where
their fellow countrymen in the Australian Test side had failed.
There was also a history of controversial incidents in previous
matched between the Other Nationalities and France, but nobody could
have predicted what was going to happen as the captains Lionel Cooper
and Puig-Aubert led their tams out onto the Boulevard pitch that
afternoon in November 1951.
Other Nationalities half-back Cec Kelly kicked off and in the first
minute full-back Puig-Aubert created a good attacking position for
France with an excellent kick to touch. Other Nationalities won
possession from the scrum, but as second-rower Arthur Clues ran
the ball out he was "tackled" high and with great force by his opposite
number Eduoard Poncinet. Big Arthur was knocked out cold and had
to be carried off. He was in a bad way, concussed, bleeding from
the mouth and with an injury to his eye.
Referee George Phillips cautioned Poncinet and the game was held
up for many minutes while Clues received first-aid. Everybody in
the Other Nationalities team knew it was "pay back time" for big
Arthur who, in the previous season's clash with France in Bordeaux,
had laid out Poncinet leaving him pouring blood from a head wound.
"I nearly scalped him," Arthur was known to claim, and the tough-nut
French second-rower Poncinet had only revenge on his mind that day
at the Boulevard.
With Clues off and the Other Nationalities down to 12 men for the
remaining 79 minutes of the game, the Hull crowd of 18,000 got behind
the "greens." Captain Lionel Cooper played one of the greatest games
of his life, the big Aussie winger defying a knee injury to scorch
in for a hat-trick of tries. It inspired his team to go on and clinch
a famous 17-14 win against all the odds.
Interspersed with some brilliant football from the Frenchmen, Poncinet
continued to wreak havoc with his fists until, eventually, in the
second-half referee Phillips ran out of patience and sent him off.
It was one of the greatest victories for an Other Nationalities
team comprising of 10 Aussies, one New Zealander, a Scotsman and
a Scots-Irishman. And in the folklore of "biffo" in Rugby League,
the ongoing saga between Arthur Clues and Eduoard Poncinet was one
of the most infamous personal duels the game has seen.
Story adapted from the "Rugby League Journal Annual 2006."
You can read much more from this game in the latest issue of
"Rugby league Journal."
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