Wednesday, 30 July 2025
Pearl Ballroom, Crown Sydney
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

It is my tradition as Governor to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of this land by greeting you in their language: Bujari Gamurura: Dyan, Babana. Gamarada… Eora Bujere—quite simply, greetings to the good people with us here today.

Although today is billed as the NSW Annual Buildcorp Rugby Lunch, it is really about a tradition: a tradition which has taken two quite distinct endeavours and forged them into a single story.

The first is a building company, but not just any building company. It is company about family, community, commitment, and excellence.

The second endeavour is the game they play in heaven, although having listened to the panel discussions today and watched the videos of some of the great matches that were spoken about, which had more than their fair share of ‘biff’, I have realised that that description is probably a euphemism for ‘the game played in hell.’

I should also add that in some ways, it hurts me to refer to Rugby in those terms having grown up in the St George area, which sported a team of that other Rugby game (Rugby League) when it seemed that God was on their side and they couldn’t lose a premiership—until the 12^th occasion, when they did… lose that is. The end of the winning streak was 1967; and they have only emerged from limbo once since, in 2010.

The game they play in heaven had its origins at the Rugby School in England, where legend has it that in 1823 William Webb Ellis caught the ball and ran with it, which brings to my mind Max Jorgensen’s spectacular try in Brisbane, when he snatched the ball seemingly out of thin air and ran with it.

I do need to add that Max has a few NRL genes, with his father Peter playing for the Roosters and the Panthers, but only after playing two tests for the Wallabies.

Being as interested in history as I am in sport, I was intrigued to learn that the first 15-a-side Rugby international was played in 1877 between England and Ireland.^[1]

Eleven years later, the first British touring team—the original ‘Lions’—came to Australia to play state, club, and schoolboy sides.^[2] 11 years after this, they returned, a tour this time including 4 matches against a team for the first time billed as ‘Australia’, before Australia as a nation had even come into existence. The score in the first match, our first international test, was 13-3… our way of course!^[3] Australia had found Rugby and Rugby had found a home down under.

Just as Buildcorp is more than a building company, Rugby is more than a game. It is a centuries-old story of everything that sport should represent… community, commitment and excellence, and it too is effectively a big family, as today’s presentations have shown.

They are the qualities that make it such an important institution both nationally and internationally, and as the Buildcorp Annual Rugby Lunch—now in its 25^th year—has demonstrated, it is a showcase of, and about, commitment and excellence, talent and leadership. Both Buildcorp and Rugby Australia are to be congratulated.

Yes… we are two tests down.

I watched the televised match. I’ve read the postmortems. I’ve read World Rugby law 9.20 (I’m a lawyer after all). Phil Waugh has made Australia’s point. However, it was Will Greenwood, former England and Lions player, who made the important point about the match, in an article in the UK Telegraph.^[4] Naturally more than pleased with the Lions’ win, he also acknowledged that Australia remains an important location for all things Rugby. And, as he added, the Wallabies did us proud—in a word, ‘awesome.’

This series has garnered huge media and public support—from TV, newspapers, radio, to record attendances—to the red jerseys filling up our bars and hotels in the city this week.

That bigger picture tells us that Saturday night is not a dead rubber. It’s a night when we know our team will play with spirit and commitment and with the innovative play that makes the Wallabies so exciting to watch.

As much as it is about the game on the night, it is about the great future for Rugby in Australia.

[1] ‘Player Number/Lettering’, Rugby Football History website, available here

[2] The touring team played 35 games of Rugby in New Zealand and Australia; of these they lost only two, both in New Zealand.

[3] The tourists would go on, however, to win the next three matches against Australia, winning the series 4-1.

[4] Will Greenwood, ‘Australian Rugby is Saved, they Should Keep the Next Lions Tour’, The Telegraph (UK) online, available here