Tanya Osborne is to be inducted into the Queensland Rugby Union Hall of Fame as a pioneering player in women’s Rugby.
Osborne’s on-fields exploits as a skilful and crash-tackling centre won her renown for the Queensland Reds and Wallaroos in the 1990s.
She also helped establish a women’s rugby team in Roma for the first time in 1994 before heading to Brisbane to excel for the Souths, Kenmore and Brothers clubs.
Osborne will be one of three Queenslanders named to join the QRU Hall of Fame at the Season Launch Long Lunch on February 16 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.
“Ozzie” Osborne was raised in Cunnamulla in outback Queensland.
She initially played Rugby league until a Roma Echidnas women’s team hooked her passion when it was established in 1994. The team would drive nearly two hours for the closest game in Toowoomba in those formative days.
Osborne headed to Brisbane to advance her Rugby. She was a member of the Queensland team which played against an international rival for the first time in 1996 when the Canadian province Alberta visited Ballymore.
Her toe-poking style as goal-kicker also contributed heavily to scoring in the same year when Queensland went undefeated through the National Championships in Sydney.
She made her Wallaroos debut the same year against New Zealand’s Black Ferns to launch her Test career.
The peak was representing Australia at the 1998 World Cup where she scored a try to help down England in the Plate final.
Her love of the game flowed beyond club, state and international duties because she represented Army rugby as a No.8 when 48.
She was an artillery private at the Enoggera Barracks at the time.
Osborne will be inducted into the Queensland Rugby Union Hall of Fame at the Season Launch Long Lunch on February 16.
