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All Blacks and all attending OURFC Jubilee
Media Release
May 2009
All Blacks and all attending OURFC Jubilee
A flurry of All Blacks and a man who last laced his boots for the team in 1947 will be among those attending the Otago University Rugby Football Club Jubilee later this month.
The Jubilee, marking 125 years since the Club began, will be held on Queens Birthday Weekend.
More than 230 people have registered for the event so far, coming from around New Zealand and the globe.
They include All Blacks from several decades, including former New Zealand captain David Kirk, Chris Laidlaw, Earl Kirton, Keith Nelson, Tuppy Diack, Paul Sapsford, Terry Morrison and Wayne Graham.
More recent All Blacks include Josh Kronfeld, Arran Pene, Marc Ellis and John Timu.
Attendees will also include Maurice McDowell, who played for the club from 1940 to 1947, as well as representatives of every other decade since.
Being a University team, former club members have spread far and wide, and while not all went on to international rugby success, many succeeded academically.
Among those attending the Jubilee is Professor Murray Brennan, a world leader in research on sarcoma, endocrine tumours and pancreatic and gastric cancers.
Prof Brennan currently chairs the department of surgery at the world's oldest and largest specialist cancer institution, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
He played for the club from 1960 to 1968, before being invited to work at the Harvard Medical School.
The Otago University Rugby Football Club was begun in a Professor's office in May 1884, and lost its first game two tries to one.
Since then, it has gone from strength to strength, however, producing indisputably the most All Blacks of any New Zealand club, and winning 49 premierships – the most of any Dunedin club by far.
It has also been home to 12 Black Ferns, 377 Otago representative players and seven New Zealand Sevens players.
The Jubilee weekend will feature three rugby matches and a dinner, as well as many trips down memory lane for all those attending.
ENDS
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