Mark Connors is an
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n
rugby unionRugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
footballer. He is currently the
Queensland RedsThe Queensland Reds represent Queensland in the sport of rugby union in the Southern Hemisphere Super Rugby competition. Prior to 1996 they were a representative team selected on merit from the rugby union club competitions in Queensland...
most capped player ever, playing 134 games for the side. He has played for
AustraliaThe Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...
20 times, including their victory in the
1999 Rugby World CupThe 1999 Rugby World Cup was the fourth Rugby World Cup, and the first to be held in rugby union's professional era. The principal host nation was Wales, although the majority of matches were played outside the country, shared between England, France, Scotland and Ireland...
.
A product of St Laurence's College, South Brisbane, he made his debut for the
Queensland RedsThe Queensland Reds represent Queensland in the sport of rugby union in the Southern Hemisphere Super Rugby competition. Prior to 1996 they were a representative team selected on merit from the rugby union club competitions in Queensland...
against
La PlataLa Plata is the capital city of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and of La Plata partido. According to the , the city proper has a population of 574,369 and its metropolitan area has 694,253 inhabitants....
in a 1994 tour of
ArgentinaArgentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. He was part of the
Queensland RedsThe Queensland Reds represent Queensland in the sport of rugby union in the Southern Hemisphere Super Rugby competition. Prior to 1996 they were a representative team selected on merit from the rugby union club competitions in Queensland...
1995
Super 10The Super 10 was a rugby union tournament featuring ten teams from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Tonga and Western Samoa, which ran for three years from 1993 to 1995...
side that won the competition. He made his international debut for Australia on 17 July 1999 in a game against the
SpringboksThe South African national rugby union team are 2009 British and Irish Lions Series winners. They are currently ranked as the fourth best team in the IRB World Rankings and were named 2008 World Team of the Year at the prestigious Laureus World Sports Awards.Although South Africa was instrumental...
in
BrisbaneBrisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, which Australia won 32 points to six. Connors was part of the Wallabies side that won the 1999 Rugby World Cup in
WalesWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. In 2000 the Wallabies won the
Tri NationsThe 2000 Tri Nations Series was contested from 15 July to 26 August between the Australia, New Zealand and South Africa national rugby union teams...
as well as the
Bledisloe CupRugby Union's Bledisloe Cup is contested by the Australia national rugby union team and New Zealand national rugby union team. It is named after Lord Bledisloe, the former Governor-General of New Zealand who donated the trophy in 1931. The trophy was designed in New Zealand by Nelson Isaac, and...
. After spending three seasons in both
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, he returned to the Queensland Reds.
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