Fifteen politicians who exchanged rugby for public affairs

Residents of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales go to the polls for general elections on Thursday, while France held its first round of elections last weekend.

Here, RugbyPass looks at 15 former rugby players who entered politics.

Pat Munro
Oxford University and London Scottish halfback who served in the Sudan Political Service and was Governor of Dafer Province, won 13 caps, including several as captain between 1905 and 1911, and was the 59th President of the SRU. He became Conservative MP for Llandaff, and Barry collapsed and died, aged 58, during a Home Guard training exercise in the Liberal Whips Office at the Palace of Westminster in May 1942.

Gordon Waddell
Scotland and Lions fly-half played for Oxford University, Devonport Service, the Royal Navy and the Barbarians, winning 18 Test caps. A successful businessman, he was a director of many companies including Cadbury Schweppes and the Fairway Group. He was elected to the South African Parliament in April 1974, representing the Progressive Party.

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Derek Wyatt
The Oxford University, Bedford and England winger who won his only cap as a substitute for David Duckham against Scotland at Murrayfield in 1976. A prolific try-scorer who helped Bedford win the RFU Knockout Cup in 1975, he was a teacher and worked in publishing before becoming the Labour Party MP for Sittingbourne & Sheppey in 1997 until resigning in 2010.

Johannes Bannerman
Glasgow HSFP, Glasgow University, Oxford University and Scotland prop and then a lock. He won 37 caps and was Scotland’s most capped player until Hugh McLeod broke his record in 1962. The 68th president of the SRU was a farm manager and then farmer who was appointed Liberal Lord Bannerman of Kildonan in 1967 after eight year. failed attempts to win elections to parliament.

Tonia Antoniazzi
Benetton Treviso and Wales prop who played in the first Women’s World Cup in 1998, and her brother Julian was a Wales Schools international. A teacher in Wigan and then Head of Modern Languages ​​at Ysol Bryngwyn in Llanelli. In June 2017, she became Gower’s first female MP and hopes to defend her seat on Thursday.

Che Guevara
Better known as an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, he began playing rugby as a schoolboy in Cordoba and played scrum half for Estudiantes of Cordoba, San Isidro Club, Yporá Rugby Club and Atalaya Polo Club. In 1951 he launched a rugby magazine, Tackle. Guevara served as Cuba’s Minister of Industry between 1961 and 1965 and was executed in October 1967 after being captured in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, while attempting to overthrow the Bolivian government.

Eamon de Valera
Dev was a well-known rugby player in his school days, playing in the three-quarters and helping Rockwell College to the Munster Cup final, which provided a trial with Munster out of position at fullback. It is said that he was eligible for an Irish cap despite being sentenced to death by a British court-martial for his part in the Easter Rising after leaving his job as a mathematics professor to become Taoiseach and President of Ireland.

Bill Clinton
After graduating from Georgetown in 1968, the 42nd President of the United States of America won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford, and although he never showed much athletic ability, he wrote to a friend that he was getting into physical shape by playing basketball and rugby. “These British rugby players are pretty tough. I’ve already got a cut above my left eye, and if I play much more I’m liable to get so badly injured that I’ll fail my draft.”

George W Bush
The 43rd President of the United States of America was an avid rugby player during high school and at Yale University. He played fullback alongside mainly international students, and according to a former teammate: “What was interesting was that he was so good as an athlete that he could play a skill position in rugby with relatively little experience. He had running skills, tackling skills and especially kicking skills.”

David Pocock
A back rower whose family moved to Australia in the wake of Robert Mugabe’s land reforms in Zimbabwe won 78 Wallaby caps with the Brumbies, the Western Force and Panasonic Wild Knights, retiring in October 2020 to become a conservationist and social justice advocate become. In 2022 he was elected as an Independent Senator for the Australian Capital Territory and is an Independent ACT Whip.

Amédée Domenech
A prop who won more than 50 Test caps and helped Brive, whose ground is named after him, to promotion to the Top 14, nicknamed Le Duc (the Duke), he became a successful actor and businessman with interests including a restaurant and real estate. He was a regional president for the Radical Party and was conseiller municipal in Brive-la-Gaillarde and Paris, and served in the cabinet of Edgar Faure when he was Prime Minister of France.

Chris Laidlaw
A half-back who played for Cambridge University, Otago and Canterbury and won 20 All Black caps, he was a labor member for Wellington Central in the New Zealand Parliament and later served as chairman of the Wellington Regional Council. He was also New Zealand’s first high commissioner in Harare.

Wavell Wakefield
The poster boy of English rugby in the 1920s was a Harlequins stalwart for a decade and helped England win three Grand Slam crowns. He was a successive businessman who founded the Rediffusion Group, was the Conservative MP for Swindon and, after retiring from Parliament in 1964, was given a life peerage and made 1st Baron Wakefield of Kendal.

Gerry McLoughlin
An Irish prop who toured with the Lions, he was elected to Limerick City Council as an independent in 2004 before joining the Labor Party two years later and being appointed Mayor of Limerick in 2012. His daughter Orla was also a member of Limerick City Council.

Oleksi Tsybko
He played forty games for Ukraine from 1991 to 2003 and founded a club in Smila, where he was mayor. He was also president of the Ukrainian Rugby Union, but was killed in March 2022 during the Russian invasion of Bucha.