John (Jack) O'Brien

John O'Brien (some records show his Christian name as Joseph and he was usually known as Jack) did play one game for New Zealand but was never selected as a New Zealand representative.

In 1901 a New Zealand team was chosen to play the touring New South Wales side in Wellington. A preliminary game against the Wellington representatives was arranged for the preceding Wednesday. Two Canterbury players, Tom Cross and W A Drake, were unavailable as they were playing for their province against the tourists that day and were replaced by J R Burt (Otago) and O'Brien who at that time was playing for the Athletic club in Wellington. Neither man played for New Zealand again but Burt did at least make it into the New Zealand team photo.

John O'Brien was born in Marsden (a few kilometres south of Greymouth) on 26 October 1870, the son of a Nelson Creek hotelkeeper. Remarkably, at the time there were seven O'Brien familes in Nelson Creek, none of them related. Playing for the shortlived Oriental club he represented West Coast as a forward in their two matches in 1896, the last played by the Union before an eight year break.

His further representative rugby was for Wellington, from the Athletic club, from 1898 to 1901 when he played in 30 of the 41 available matches.

Subsequently O'Brien married Mary Cagney in Oamaru in 1905 and they had two daughters and two sons. He died on 25 April 1946 when resident in Devonport, Auckland, and his death certificate shows him as a retired Sergeant of Police.

Until March 2002, no photo had been found of any of the club and provincial teams he played for and he remained the one New Zealand representative whose photo we have been unable to locate. Due to a news item on One Network News that outlined the situation a member of the public came forward with a team photo of the 1901 Wellington team that played Wairarapa on the 20th July 1901 that included John O'Brien, thus completing the photographic record of all the All Blacks.

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