Name Geoff Bugden Role Rugby player | Height 1.85 m Weight 101 kg | |
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Geoff Bugden (born 6 September 1960) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer of the 1980s. He played for the Newtown Jets and the Parramatta Eels in the Australian New South Wales Rugby League competition. He won two premierships with the Eels and he primarily played in the front-row.
A Newtown junior, by 1979 Bugden had progressed to first grade. He was the first ever forward to win the NSW Rugby Leagues best and fairest player award, the Rothmans Medal, in 1980. Bugden was a reserve for the Newtown Jets side that lost the 1981 Grand Final against the Parramatta Eels. The next year, 1982, Geoff Bugden changed clubs and returned to the Sydney Cricket Ground playing for Parramatta in their Grand Final win over Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles. Bugden was selected to represent New South Wales for games I and III of the 1983 State of Origin series. A serious injury to his chest in 1983 forced Bugden to announce his premature retirement from the game but two years later, he was back for Parramatta only to break his arm. In 1986 Bugden was on the field once more and was part of the Eels' 1986 Grand Final win over the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, in which he played against his brother Mark and earned himself five-minutes in the sin-bin for tackling Steve Mortimer without the ball.
After a long career that was often curtailed by serious injury, Bugden retired after completing the 1989 season.