page_title: Sydney Middleton
section_title: Rugby
hierarchical_section_title: Sydney Middleton / Rugby
caption_attribution_description: English: Summer Olympics rugby final: Australasia (now Australia national team) v. Cornwall RFU (G. Britain).
context_page_description: Sydney Albert 'Syd' Middleton DSO, OBE was an Australian Army officer and national representative rugby union player and rower. He won a gold medal in rugby at the 1908 Summer Olympics and competed in rowing at the 1912 Summer Olympics.
  He captained the Wallabies in a Test series in 1910. As a rower he was twice an Australian national champion and won the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta in 1912. He had a distinguished career in World War I being awarded the DSO and later an OBE.He was a member of the AIF crew which won at the 1919 Peace Regatta and brought the King's Cup to Australia.
context_section_description: Middleton commenced his rugby career with the Glebe Rugby Club—the Sydney suburb of his birth. His first representative appearance was for New South Wales in the interstate series against Queensland in 1908 which performance saw him selected for New South Wales against the touring Anglo-Welsh side of 1908. He was in the right place at the right time and was selected in Australia's inaugural national rugby team to tour the northern hemisphere – Dr Paddy Moran's First Wallabies. The tour was a long one—36 matches and Middleton would prove to be a reliable member of the party appearing in 31 of the Wallabies matches. He was the second tallest player in the squad which meant he featured in the Australian line-out. But he was also a robust defender at his physical peak and he was selected in every one of the tour's first eighteen games.
caption: 1908 Olympic Final Wallabies v Cornwall.
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