Joe Warbrick

Who was Joe Warbrick?

Joe Warbrick, born Joseph Astbury Warbrick, was a Māori rugby union player who represented New Zealand on their 1884 tour to Australia, and later captained and selected the 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team that embarked on a 107-match tour of New Zealand, Australia and the British Isles.

He was born in Rotorua, and played club rugby for Ponsonby while boarding at St Stephen's Native School. In 1877 he was selected to play fullback for Auckland as a 15-year-old, making him the youngest person to play first-class rugby in New Zealand. He played for Auckland against the first ever overseas team to tour the country – New South Wales – in 1882. In 1884 he was picked for the first ever New Zealand representative team, and appeared in seven of the side's eight matches on their tour of New South Wales.

In 1888 Warbrick conceived of, selected, and captained the privately funded New Zealand Native team. The squad, which included four of Warbrick's brothers, was originally envisaged to contain only Māori players, but eventually included a number of New Zealand-born, and foreign-born, Europeans.