I had the opportunity to work with Mark Ella at the 2011 RWC. I asked him why he had retired from the game at only 25 after captaining Australia to a Grand slam and scoring a try in every test. He replied if he had known that the RWC was going to happen 3 years later he would have stuck around. He told me that he simply couldn't afford to continue to play the game as it was amateur at that time.I believe like many players he played in Italy for a while as you could get under the table payments. Australian rugby needs to take responsibility for not being able to look after one of its greatest ever players and allowing him to leave the great game.
I got into watching rugby in 1984 when australia toured Britain and Ireland,Mark Ella was the name on everyone's lips,I was 16 at the time and never even held a rugby ball because I'm from a gaelic football background but I remember been in the local football pitch with my friends and we all thought we were Mark Ella even though we were playing with a round ball but that was the influence he had on us,it was also the first time David Campese and Michael Lynagh and Nick Farr- Jones played here,a truly brilliant Australian team and I've been a fan of aussie rugby ever since and also there league team,Australia have produced naturally gifted players over the years more so I think than any other country,greetings from Ireland 🇮🇪.
Ozzie rugby was just sublime in the 80s. Being half welsh I was spoiled in the 70s, but being also half English I spent the 80s in a suicidal state. I also had to stop playing very early due injury. Only this stuff saved my rugby life.
I will always remember the great Mark Ella along with the amazing team of players he had around him. It was a great era of rugby for Australia and we across the ditch just marveled at the type of running game they were playing. They were a great team and with Mark in their ranks they didn't lose many games. Thank-you for sharing this vid brings back great memories.
Gus Gould interviewed the King Wally Lewis and asked who is the most gifted and dangerous player he has ever seen across both codes. Without thinking or flinching for half a second…..Mark Ella. Game, set and match.
Growing up in New Zealand I had no shortage of Athletes that inspired me to play the best I could. Although not a fellow countryman, Marc Ella was one of my childhood heroes. His nationality didnt mean a thing, ANZAC spirit taught us from young age that Aussies are our brothers in arms. Respect Ella Brothers.
Thank you so much for uploading and creating this sequence! I was spellbound in 1984 when he played such magical rugby on the Aussie tour to the UK! Most rugby enthusiasts agree that he was the most entertaining rugby player to have ever played!!!!!
My god Randwick were great to watch back then. The pace and skill they played with makes it easy to see why they won so many flags. Mark Ella is one of my all time favourite players and seeing him here just confirms it.
Mark Ella retired from International rugby after the 1984 Wallaby grand slam tour aged only 25. Still think he had 2-3 good years in him . The Wallabies could have done with at the 1987 RWC. One of the great rugby flyhalfs ever.
Grew up watching the Ella brothers carve it up ... being a maori in NZ following all his games on telly. Kind of upset my family. But damn u can deny his skill.
My only 'claim to fame' (🤣😂🤣) as a rugby player is, I tackled Mark Ella once, in a High School rugby match. Matraville High flogged us by 76 - 0 as I recall. Huge fan of the Wicks & the Wallabies when the Ella Bros played.
I have a good friend who played fullback for a high school team that had the misfortune of coming up against Matraville High in the Waratah Shield. He tells the story that at least 5 times in the game, Mark Ella broke the line and was running straight at my fullback mate with plenty of support. Each time, like any good dutiful fullback (my friend was an excellent player BTW) he took the ball carrier (Mark Ella) who passed and Matraville scored. Late in the game, well thrashed, it happened again and this time my mate decided he'd fake the tackle and go for the intercept. Sure enough, Mark Ella threw the dummy and scored. To this day, my mate still says, "How did he know??? How did he know I was going to go for the intercept??"
When the man they call the King, Wally Lewis, and who played in the same postion, calls you the best player he ever saw, you're it! Special mention for Russell Fairfax, who I watched a a number of times down at Coogee Oval playing for the Greens on a Saturday afternoon. He was absolutely top class. Would ha e been an all time great for Australian Rugby, but got lured to Rugby League, where he still showed his class, but not like he did in Union.
Some people talk about the way rugby has evolved and the speed and athleticism of today's players. Randwick's heyday with the Ella brothers was incomparable. Today's backlines could learn a lot from the genius of Mark Ella.
What a great post for Mark Ella and as a Kiwi I always enjoyed watching Mark and Glen playing for Oz. In the same way, I have enjoyed watching the Barrett brothers playing for the Blacks though it is interesting to note that Mark and Glen never got to play for Oz at the same time.
@@petefrench4198 How can he be in Wilkinson carter mold when he played before them. He was better than both those players. Ella had a casualness about him. Made it look easy.
@@chrisbuesnell3428mark ella was pure talent, he doesn’t get the recognition he deserves, kinda like Christian Cullen, both players were absolute beasts
What indigenous player would want to run out with that current rabble? All you have to do is have a look at the NRL and the AFL to know where the indigenous talent is going.
Genius is an understatement. Watching Randwick in the 80s was pure joy. I still can't believe he retired at 25. One of many reasons I hate Alan Jones. Lloyd Walker is the forgotten man of that Randwick side. Amazing hands.
Watching Randwick in the 70s and 80s was a pure joy - unless you were a Manly or Parramatta fan as I am. We had our moments against them though - the 1977 Shute Shield grand final will forever remain one of my most precious memories.
I have a good friend who played fullback for a high school team that had the misfortune of coming up against Matraville High in the Waratah Shield. He tells the story that at least 5 times in the game, Mark Ella broke the line and was running straight at my fullback mate with plenty of support. Each time, like any good dutiful fullback (my friend was an excellent player BTW) he took the ball carrier (Mark Ella) who passed and Matraville scored. Late in the game, well thrashed, it happened again and this time my mate decided he'd fake the tackle and go for the intercept. Sure enough, Mark Ella threw the dummy and scored. To this day, my mate still says, "How did he know??? How did he know I was going to go for the intercept??"
Notice all the body sizes. All pretty much regular. Very few gym bodies. From the days before the tactical replacement (TR) laws when every player had no choice but to make it to the 80 minute mark if injury didn't interrupt. Rugby needs the faster brain, it does not need bulk (usually mutually exclusive), to play with speed, accuracy, control, side-steps, anticipation, offloads and support lines to unlock the defence. The TR changes have been a huge blow to producing entertainment that will guarantee continued support from fans, even from those who will never play the game. Though their sons and daughters may. Rugby has to think about the future now that it has gone fully professional: exactly what is its 'product'. Play like this is not just the Ella boys, it is opportunity, early involvement, and the sheer joy of running around a paddock with 14 mates against 15 future mates. [We don't do tribalism either.]
What a brilliant comment. Rugby really was a game for all shapes and sizes back then. Until these ridiculous American football style substitutions are examined properly and player weights - sizes are addressed through thoughtful law changes the game will continue to evolve past the point where real people have a realistic chance of success. Now, smaller, lighter people are like hens teeth and even then they have to bulk up beyond a reasonable point just to survive the collisions.
Too bad there's not video of what was in a way was his most remarkable try. Playing for Randwick one day he went to force the ball in the in-goal area but quietly told the referee, the only other person nearby, that he did not intent to force the ball. He then picked the ball up without putting any downward pressure on it, walked up field past the quarter line, and then all the way down to the opposite end of the field and put the ball down under the opposition's crossbar, whereupon the referee, who had walked just behind him the whole way, awarded a try. What can be more genius than that?
I was at the game shown at around 2:00. It was a final at TG Milner to see who would go on to play Manly in the GF the following week (as a Manly fan I was at the GF as well - to see us get flogged). At the TG Milner game, I remember thinking on the way there, that the match up between Mark Ella and Charlie Blunt would probably decide the game. Charlie Blunt was no slouch - a very good player, but Mark Ella made Charlie look foolish all day. I just sat there (behind the northern goal posts) continually shaking my head in disbelief at the stuff Mark Ella was doing. I've never seen a five-eighth dominate a game so much, over a damned good opponent.
Back when rugby was rugby, not the crap they try to pass off as rugby now. Forwards all wearing black Adidas French Cap boots , John Maxwell ruling the roost
