Queensland’s most-capped player, former hooker Sean Hardman, was today elected President of the Queensland Rugby Union.
Hardman (QRU #1102, Wallaby #776) takes over from Roger Gould (QRU#913, Wallaby #617), who stepped down at the QRU Annual General Meeting after six years.
Hardman was capped a record 148 times for the Queensland Reds after making his debut in 1999. He played four times for the Wallabies, including at the 2007 Rugby World Cup.
"It's a great honour, especially at this time with rugby having the chance to make a major imprint in Australia over the next few years," Hardman, 48, said.
"I want to see rugby in Queensland advancing and seeing the environment up close again on the Reds' tour to play Bristol and Ulster last year was unreal.
"There must have been 12 Wallabies on the field in Bristol. Having that many good players is not chance or timing, it's Queensland rugby working really hard for it."
Hardman has experience as a former players' representative on the QRU board, a former Classic Wallabies board member and former Brothers Rugby Club board member.
Vice-Presidents Kim Bending and Jen Gillett were re-elected at the meeting.
Linda Bennetts, a long-serving Wests Bulldogs physiotherapist, was elected a Life Member of the QRU for more than four decades of service to the game. Bennetts, Wests’ first female Life Member, led the way in revolutionising club rugby medical facilities and services in the 1980s and 1990s. She becomes only the second QRU Life Member to be appointed without ever having played the game (along with the late Peter “Doubles” Daley).
QRU Chair Brett Clark AM, Selwyn Button and Michael Zaicek were all re-elected as member-elected directors of the QRU with Toowoomba-based April Cavanagh elected for her first term.
The AGM also noted the re-appointment of Joe Coote and Sarah Zeljko as Board-appointed directors, with former Wallabies captain James Horwill re-elected as the player-nominated director.
