Bob McCarthy

Robert John McCarthy MBE (born 5 August 1944) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer and coach. He played for the South Sydney Rabbitohs, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, New South Wales and for the Australian national side. He later coached in Brisbane, taking Souths Magpies to a premiership in 1981 and coaching the Gold Coast-Tweed Giants upon their entry to the Winfield Cup. Since 2001 he has been the chairman of both the Australian and NSW state selection panels.

A fast and strong second-row McCarthy played 10 tests for Australia and five matches in two World Cups. He made the 1973 Kangaroo Tour and two tours of New Zealand. He played 211 first grade games for Souths (1963–1975 and 1978), scoring 100 tries. He played in three grand final victories (1967, 1970 and 1971) and in two losing grand finals (1965 and 1969).

Born in inner city Surry Hills, New South Wales in Sydney in an Irish-Australian Roman Catholic family, McCarthy was a South Sydney junior with the Moore Park Club and made his first grade debut in 1963. In 1965 he was in the team of young Rabbitohs who challenged St George in the Grand Final in front of a record breaking crowd of 78,065 at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Along with McCarthy the nucleus of this side was John O'Neill, Ron Coote, Eric Simms, Mike Cleary and John Sattler who went on to feature in Australian representative teams for the next six years and who would help create a golden period for South Sydney at the end of the 1960s, and in the early years of the next decade.

The advent of the four tackle rule in 1967 was tailor-made for the athletic, barrel-chested McCarthy and his coach Clive Churchill gave him license to stand wide in attack to make best use of his tank-like charges.

One of the most spectacular tries in Grand Final history came from such positional play when just before halftime in the 1967 decider against Canterbury McCarthy intercepted a pass out wide from Canterbury hooker Col Brown and ran the length of the field to score and to take the Rabbitohs to a two-point lead which they didn't give up by game's end.

He missed Souths 1968 Grand Final victory, played in the 1969 loss to the Balmain Tigers and was a member of the 1970 and 1971 premiership sides. It was primarily McCarthy's retribution which saw Manly's John Bucknall leave the field before half-time in the 1970 Grand Final after Bucknall had earlier broken the jaw of Souths captain John Sattler and the Souths forwards had regrouped to protect and avenge their captain. In the 1971 Grand Final against St George Ron Coote made a break and passed to McCarthy who raced away to score under the posts to seal Souths 16–10 Grand Final win.

In 1975 McCarthy became only the second forward in the history of the game after Frank Burge to surpass the 100 career try tally.

McCarthy moved to Canterbury for the 1976 and 1977 seasons where he played at Prop forward and played 37 games for the club helping them to the semi-finals in 1976. He returned to the Rabbitohs in 1978 to finish his career in a brief five-game season ended by injury.