John Meadows (rugby union)
John Ernest Charles Meadows (born 2 February 1949) is an Australian former rugby union international.
| Full name | John Ernest Charles Meadows | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | 2 February 1949 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | London, England | ||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
Meadows was born in London and attended Sheerness Boy's Technical School, Kent. Moving with his family to Melbourne as a teenager, he finished his schooling at Prahran High School.
A strong scrummaging prop, Meadows played for the Kiwis club of Melbourne, the only non New Zealander in the expatriate formed club. He was a protege of Wales and British Lions prop John O'Shea, an immigrant to Melbourne.
Having impressed at state level for Victoria, Meadows made his Wallabies debut in 1974, against the All Blacks in Sydney. He was capped 22 times in total, featuring on the 1975–76 and 1981–82 British tours. Towards the end of his career, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, but after successful treatment returned to Wallabies colours.
Meadows represented Queensland after relocating in 1982 to work for Wallaby Stan Pilecki's company.