Born: c.1888 – Tauranga
Died: May 18, 1941 – Cyrenaica, Libya
Test record: 1 Test (1927) – 0 points
Tours: 1926-27 tour of Britain

Equally at home in the three-quarter line or the forward pack, New Zealand Māori rep George Gardiner played one Test on the Kiwis’ troubled 1926-27 tour of Britain.

Gardiner served with distinction in World War I and featured on the New Zealand Māori Pioneer Battalion rugby union team’s tour of New Zealand, before representing Bay of Plenty.

Touring with the 1922 New Zealand Māori side in his initial rugby league foray, Gardiner lined up in a win over Auckland and seven matches in Australia. He scored two tries in a loss to Queensland and three tries in a win over Orange. Later that year he scored Bay of Plenty’s only try in its loss to the touring NSW team.

Gardiner moved to Auckland and had stints with Fire Brigade (later Grafton Athletic), Marist Old Boys and Ponsonby United. He represented Auckland against England in 1924 and Auckland Province against Queensland in 1925.

Winning selection for New Zealand’s 1926-27 tour, Gardiner debuted in a match against Auckland prior to the team’s departure. He made 20 appearances and scored eight tries in Britain, predominantly as a winger but regularly filling in as a forward.

An occasional goalkicker, he scored 13 points in a win over York and bagged two tries against Liverpool City. The strapping utility was involved in one of the most extraordinary on-field incidents of the tour at St Helens, sent off for striking a touch judge who had made a derogatory remark to him.

With a player strike decimating the Kiwis’ forward stocks, Gardiner was selected as a second-rower for his only Test appearance, a 32-17 defeat to England at Headingley in the last match of the tour.

Gardiner continued to play for Ponsonby until the early-1930s before embarking on a professional wrestling career that took him to Australia under the ring name ‘George Tiki’.

The 40-year-old Gardiner enlisted in the Australian Forces upon the outbreak of World War II and died in battle in Libya in 1941.