Test cauldron was relaxation for undercover cop Crowley

Brendan Gallagher continues his enthralling series by looking at the best rugby-playing police officers

- Brendan Gallagher

1. Dan Crowley (Queensland and Australia)

A remarkable character who combined an elite rugby career with his role as an undercover policeman in Queensland specialising in dangerous drug operations. All this was only possible with the collusion of the Australian media who complied with requests from Queensland and Australia that they never use a photograph of him or interview the rawboned prop. His occupation, if listed at all, was normally put down as security or risk mitigation.

Nothing could stop his match day appearance on the TV but happily he was usually buried deep in a scrum or maul, wore an overlarge headband and – it would appear – very few drug barons and their heavies in Queensland were Rugby Union fans.

Crowley enjoyed a significant career and was a member of two World Cup-winning squads (1991 and 1999) and played in the 1989 Lions series and his extraordinary double life is chronicled in his autobiography. In Undercover Prop he details some of the drugs raids and shoot outs and indeed at one time he continued coordinating on an undercover assignment back in Australia while preparing for a Test in New Zealand.

“Bob Dwyer once asked me why I seemed so cool and calm before games and didn’t suffer from nerves,” explains Crowley. “I replied that for a day job I often barged through a door not knowing if there was somebody on the other side armed with a shotgun. Rugby was a relaxation by comparison.”

2. John Gallagher (Old Askeans, London Irish, Wellington, New Zealand)