Kenneth Howard "Killer" Kearney (3 May 192418 August 2006) was an Australian rugby footballer – a dual-code international player – and a rugby league coach. He represented the Wallabies in seven Tests, and the Kangaroos in thirty-one Test matches and World Cup games. He captained Australia in nine rugby league Test matches in 1956 and 1957. He was a and captain-coach with the St. George Dragons in the first half of their eleven-year consecutive premiership winning run from 1956 to 1966. He is considered one of Australia's finest footballers of the 20th century. Biography Kearney was born in Penrith, New South Wales. He joined Parramatta's 1st grade rugby union side from school before serving in the Royal Australian Air Force in World War II and represented Combined Services in rugby union. Rugby union career After discharge from the Air Force he resumed playing rugby union in Australia and débuted for the Wallabies against the All Blacks playing two Tests in June 1947 then went on the 1947–48 Australian rugby union tour of Europe and North America, playing against each of the five European rugby union nations. Rugby league career Kearney returned to England at the end of the Wallabies tour and switched to the professional code of rugby league. After three seasons with Leeds he returned to Australia in 1952 and joined St George. He was captain-coach between 1954 and 1955, and later between 1957 and 1961. At the end of his first club rugby league season back in Australia with St George, Kearney was selected for the 1952 Kangaroo tour. Kearney's international rugby league début in Bradford on 13 December 1952 saw him become Australia's 24th dual code rugby international, following Len Smith, and preceding Rex Mossop. Kearney played in the 3rd Test against Great Britain, all three tests against France, and sixteen minor tour matches. He is listed on the Australian Players Register as Kangaroo No.302. He went on the 1953 tour of New Zealand playing in all three Tests and the following year represented in the 1954 Rugby League World Cup, the first ever, in France. In 1956, the commencing year of the Dragons' record breaking run Norm Tipping had coached the team to an excellent season result of 15 wins, four losses and 1 draw but regardless would be ousted from the coaching job shortly after the grand final victory. He was the loser in a