Playing Career
An Otahahu junior, Graham played in 29 tests, captaining the Kiwis side in 18 of them and scoring 7 tries from 1977 to 1988. In a 1980 Test match at Lang Park, Brisbane, Graham put a hit on Australian captain Wally Lewis that crushed his oesophagus. In another trans-Tasman test at Lang Park on 18 June 1985, he served as Kiwi captain and was deliberately taken out of the game by a high shot from Noel "Crusher" Cleal while playing brilliantly and inspirationally. After winning premierships with his club in New Zealand he played eight seasons in the Brisbane Rugby League premiership with the Norths club under coach Graham Lowe, as well as the New South Wales Rugby League premiership for the North Sydney Bears between 1981 and 1988. He also captained the Bears.
At the end of the 1988 Winfield Cup season, Graham travelled to England to captain the newly promoted Wakefield Trinity club in the 1988–89 Rugby Football League season. In 1989 his biography Mark my words: The Mark Graham Story was published.
Read more about this topic: Mark Graham (rugby League)
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