Doug Phillips (rugby)
Welsh rugby union and rugby league footballer (1919–2000)
Douglas Versailles Phillips (28 June 1919 – 28 April 2000) was a Welsh rugby union, and professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1940s and 1950s. He played representative level rugby union for Glamorgan (two occasions), and at club level for Swansea RFC. Having switched codes to rugby league he played representative level rugby league for Great Britain and Wales; and at club level for Oldham and Belle Vue Rangers, as a second-row.
Early life
Phillips was born in Neath, Wales on the day the Treaty of Versailles was signed and as a result was given the middle name of Versailles. As a schoolboy he played rugby union for Neath Schoolboys and was playing for Swansea RFC's first team when aged only 18. Two appearances for Glamorgan followed as well as two trials for the Welsh national side before the Second World War intervened and Phillips joined the army. During the war Phillips played for the Combined Services XV and featured in a rugby union match at Odsal Stadium, Bradford in April 1944 against the Combined Services rugby league XV. Phillips scored the opening try of the game although the league XV ran out 15–10 winners. Opposing Phillips in the rugby league XV were three players he would later tour Australia and New Zealand with; Ernest Ward, Ike Owens and Trevor Foster. Phillips performance in this game brought him to the attention of several rugby league clubs and he signed for Oldham towards the end of 1944.
Rugby league playing career
Club career
Phillips début for Oldham was on 17 February 1945 in a 16–0 victory over Batley. His army service presented Phillips from playing regularly and by the end of the 1945–46 season he had made only eight appearances for Oldham but had done enough to be called up to play both for Wales and Great Britain.
The public source identifies “Doug Phillips (rugby)” as welsh rugby union and rugby league footballer (1919–2000). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Doug, Phillips and rugby.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5300818. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1919, 2000, 1944 and 1945.
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This entry incorporates text from “Doug Phillips (rugby)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.