page_title: Vay Wilson
section_title: Captaincy & 1939
hierarchical_section_title: Vay Wilson / Captaincy & 1939
caption_attribution_description: Wallabies en route to England 1939
context_page_description: Vayro Wilson DSC was an Australian World War II naval combatant and a state and national representative rugby union player who captained the Wallabies in three Test matches immediately prior to World War II. He was selected to captain the ill-fated 1939–40 Australia rugby union tour of Britain and Ireland which was cancelled because of the outbreak of World War Two.
context_section_description: Only six Queenslanders had preceded Wilson to the Australian team captaincy when he assumed it against the All Blacks in July 1938 in the 1st Test of their tour of Australia. He led Queensland against them the following week and retained his national captaincy for the 2nd and 3rd tests. Australia lost all three games, although the margins were tight in games two and three at 6 and 8 points respectively.
  When the trials for the 1939 British Isles touring squad were held Cyril Towers made a comeback but the selectors opted for Wilson to retain the captaincy and his front-row position. The team left Australia on the ship Mooltan and Wilson did an excellent job keeping the squad fit on the journey. The team docked at Southampton on the day when England declared war on Nazi Germany. After a couple of weeks spent filling sandbags to start the war effort, a pub crawl around the West Country, and a meeting with the royal family, the squad set sail for Australia having not played a game. Of the unlucky tourists only Bill McLean, Keith Windon and Len Smith would return to footballing success after the war.
  The Whiticker reference records that "the squad played an exhibition match in Bombay on the journey home so that the players could be afforded international status". However rugby league historian Sean Fagan casts doubt on this, citing his 1998 interview with squad member Len Smith wherein Smith advised that the game was played between one-half of the touring squad against the other with extra numbers made up by some military personnel on hand in Bombay. This is supported by the Pollard reference which records that the Wallabies played against a "Gymkhana XV made up of military men and others".
caption: Wilson leads team training on deck en route to England 1939.
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