In the week leading up to a great day for English rugby and a fortnight leading up to the dedication of The Last Stand, it is an appropriate time to remember the club’s international players. In alphabetical order they were:
N S Cox – England v Scotland 1901 – a game in which two Sunderland RFC players featured in the backs – England lost 3-18.
C H Elliot – England v Wales 1886 – He played in the front row and was involved in the winning score.
E W Elliot - Scotland, Ireland and Wales 1901 and Wales 1904 – He played on the wing and in the centres – Against Scotland he was alongside N S Cox. All 1901 games were lost and the 1904 match ended in a draw. C H Elliot was his uncle.
H E Kayll – England v Scotland 1878 – Durham County’s first England international and featured, alongside his brothers, in a number of blogs.
H Marshall – England v Wales 1893 – Although Wales won by a small margin afforded by the strange method of scoring, Howard Marshall recorded a famous hat-trick of tries. He retired through injury but during the First World War was praised for his contribution to work on X Rays. In the 1890s (when he played for club and country) his family was living in the Elms.
F O Poole – Scotland, Ireland and Wales 1895 - He played in the back row with two successful wins and a loss. He was at Oxford University at the time but came to Sunderland for the following two seasons. During one of the seasons Sunderland RFC had two future internationals (N S Cox and E W Elliot) in the side and a past international in F O Poole!
Bernard Cunningham played for England in a war-time international against Wales (1943)
