Peter Johnson

Peter George Johnson (13 September 1936 – 12 July 2016) was an Australian international rugby union player. He enjoyed a long state and international career throughout the 1960s and made 92 national appearances for his country. He captained the Australian side in five Test matches.

Early rugby Schooled at Waverley Public in Sydney's east, Johnson gained entry to Sydney Boys High School and learnt his rugby from the former rugby league international Frank O'Rourke. He was selected in the GPS 2nd XV in his last year of high school. He started his senior rugby at the Eastern Suburbs club, then moved to Randwick and then played at Sydney Uni for a spell. Back at Randwick he deputised at hooker behind the first-grade rake Jim Brown who was also the Wallaby incumbent. Johnson was selected out of second-grade to trial for the 1957–58 Australia rugby union tour of Britain, Ireland and France but did not make the squad.

Representative career Johnson started featuring in representative sides from 1958 playing for South Harbour and for the Australian Barbarians against the visiting New Zealand Maori. That year he was selected in the squad for the 1958 Australia rugby union tour of New Zealand, he played in five matches but no Tests. Howell asserts that Johnson made an affable tourist, was witty and humorous and was welcomed in the rugby tour environment. Later that year the Wallabies undertook the 1962 Australia rugby union tour of New Zealand with John Thornett as squad captain. Johnson played in eight of the thirteen games including all three Test matches.

Johnson was in a victorious Wallaby side in 1963 who beat England before he then was selected for the 1963 Australia rugby union tour of South Africa. He played in sixteen matches and in all four Tests was the dominant Australian forward and matched it with the Springboks' best. Howell quotes the rugby writer Phil Tressider: "Peter Johnson showed once again that he is the outstanding hooker in international Union today.....his all round forward play was so sound that he could have held down a test position simply as prop forward". Later that year he was inducted into the Australian Rugby Hall of Fame.