16 Facts About Barry Muir

Barry Muir was an Australian professional rugby league footballer and coach.

Barry Muir was educated and played junior rugby league at Coolangatta State School and represented Queensland Schoolboys in 1951.

Barry Muir would leave school at age 15 to take up a carpentry apprenticeship.

Barry Muir was a promising junior cricketer, occasional boxer, and coxswain for the Tweed Rowing Club.

Barry Muir played a season in 1957 with Valleys in Toowoomba before joining Western Suburbs in 1958 in the Brisbane Rugby League.

Barry Muir was captain-coach of Western Suburbs from 1966 to 1968.

Barry Muir continued playing in 1970 as captain-coach with Ayr in North Queensland, before finished his playing career as captain-coach in 1971 back at Tweed Heads, where his career had begun 15 seasons earlier.

Barry Muir debuted for Queensland against a visiting New Zealand team in 1959 and was selected in the Australia national rugby league team for the same series.

Barry Muir played in the Queensland victory over New South Wales that attracted 35,261 spectators, smashing Brisbane's previous record for an interstate match of 22,817.

Barry Muir was vice-captain of the Australian squad for the 1960 World Cup and played in all three Australian appearances.

Barry Muir first captained Australia in the opening match of that World Cup against France when Keith Barnes was out injured.

Barry Muir was abruptly sent-off by referee Eric Clay in the Third Test at Headingley, Leeds for a reckless kick directed towards his opposite number Tommy Smales when the ball came out of a scrum on the Great Britain side.

Barry Muir coached the Queensland side from 1974 to 1978 and during this time Barry Muir coined the term "cockroaches", the derogatory descriptor of the New South Wales rugby league team still used by the Queenslanders.

Barry Muir was a long time outspoken critic of the system that allowed the best Queensland club players to move to the Sydney competition and then to represent New South Wales.

In February 2008, Barry Muir was named in the list of Australia's 100 Greatest Players which was commissioned by the NRL and ARL to celebrate the code's centenary year in Australia.

Barry Muir was survived by his wife and four children.