John Duggan

Who is John Duggan?

John "Johnny" Duggan is an English rugby union and professional rugby league footballer of the 1940s and '50s, playing club level rugby union for Wakefield RFC, as a Wing, i.e. number 11 or 14, and playing club level rugby league for Wakefield Trinity, as a Wing, i.e. number 2 or 5.

At the age of 13, Duggan played Stand-Off/Fly-half and captained St Austin's school but he didn't play any further rugby until leaving school at 16 when he joined Wakefield RFC as a Winger. In the 1945/46 season, he scored three tries in four appearances. The following season saw fourteen tries in twenty two games. the 1947/48 season was his last amateur season, he played three games in 1947 scoring two tries.

He signed for Wakefield Trinity at Christmas 1947 when he was 18. In his first full season for Trinity he made 28 appearances and scored seventeen tries, four of them in one game against Featherstone Rovers.

The Wakefield Express described how he became a firm favourite with the Wakefield Trinity crowd for

"his strong running, elusiveness and never say die temperament"

In September 1949, he was selected to play for Yorkshire but had to withdraw having broken his nose in a game against St. Helens.