Rugby was a passport to travel the world

GREW up in Queensland Country, in a small town called Rockhampton, and played a lot of rugby league as a kid.

- KENT BRAY

It was only in the last two years of grammar school that I started to play rugby union, and I took to it well. I enjoyed the strategic kicking because I could kick off both feet and there tended to be more space on the field. Little did I know then the opportunities that rugby union would bring to me. It has been my passport to travel the world to places I would have never imagined going to, and I've met some great people along the way.

The first pivotal moment for me came when I was selected for Queensland U19s. Most of the players who got selected for Queensland came from the big private schools in Brisbane - the Tim Horans, Michael Lynaghs, the John Eales of this world. I played with guys that went on to represent the Wallabies - Brendan Nasser was in the 1991 World Cup-winning squad, and his son Josh plays for the Wallabies now, and there was Slats (Peter Slattery) - Nick Farr-Jones' understudy.

I didn't feel out of my depth at all, and I was named player of the tour when we went to New Zealand in 1983. After that, I thought, I'm going to go to Brisbane and give this a proper go. I got a job as a boarding housemaster at one of the big schools and I met a guy by the name of Alec Evans, who went on to coach Wales at the World Cup. He persuaded me to join Wests. So I went along and it was the best training session that I'd ever had up to that point. Within two years, we'd won a Grand Final. We beat Queensland University in a game where both teams had about seven or eight Wallabies. I made the full Queensland squad from there and was in it for five seasons but only played three games. I had a certain Michael Lynagh in front of me at fly-half and Greg Martin at full-back.