JOHN EALES WESTERN TOUR

After winning the Bledisloe Cup, Eales kept his end of a deal and toured Western NSW and Qld, with his father, both humble men obviously. Most would disagree with John on his cricketing ability, there was a story floating around early In the Eales career that the Reds were playing some social cricket and John Connolly was that impressed with Eales hand eye coordination (I think), I also think the big man was fielding at first slip, gladly corrected though, that he decided then that Eales would kick goals for Qld that year. Bit of an era for very good cricketers to be playing Rugby, Jason Little was a phenomenal cricketer, well phenomenal all round athlete actually, but at 16 or 17 he was towelling up Ian Botham and the likes as England toured the country. Berrick Barnes, also a phenomenal cricketer, was touted as the next Qld wicket keeper at the time until he chose Rugby. There is also a story that Bob Dwyer approached Connolly before the 1991 World Cup and was asking of Eales and his readiness for the test arena, Connolly replied with something like in a couple of years, the kid can only bench press xxx (not very much), Dwyer replied with that he was sort of thinking he was ready right now. Everybody knows how both of those stories ended.

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