Ernie Norman

Brown, Norman and Stehr

Playing career Norman was born in Paddington, New South Wales in 1912 and was an Eastern Suburbs junior. He was graded with Easts at seventeen years of age and made his Australian debut two years later at nineteen. Throughout his career he made fifteen state representative appearances for New South Wales and played in twelve Tests for the Australia national rugby league team. He is listed on the Australian Players Register as Kangaroo No. 169.

Norman coached Eastern Suburbs for three seasons from 1950 to 1952. By this time Easts had fallen into the cellar – they had been bottom for the first time in the 1949 season under Ray Stehr – and although Norman improved the Tricolours to seventh in 1950 with seven wins and fifth with nine victories (including premiers South Sydney's solitary home-and-away defeat) in 1951, a lapse to eighth in 1952 prevented him keeping the job.

Norman died of a short illness on 3 August 1993, 70 days before his 81st birthday.

In February 2008, Norman was named in the list of Australia's 100 Greatest Players (1908–2007) which was commissioned by the NRL and ARL to celebrate the code's centenary year in Australia.