Troubled Wallabies star reveals he was sexually abused at school

A former Wallabies star has revealed he was sexually abused by a Marist brother at one of Sydney’s most prestigious private schools.

Tony Daly, who played 41 times for Australia as a front-rower between 1989 and 1995, has told The Daily Telegraph that he was abused between the ages of 11 and 13 at St Joseph’s College.

“I was 11 at the time and didn’t know any better, for years I thought it was normal behaviour,” he told the newspaper. “I felt dirty, yucky, I felt betrayed and angry.”

Daly, who scored one of the tries that helped Australia win the 1991 Ruby World Cup against England, blames the abuse for his self-destructive life choices, which include substance abuse, theft, driving offences and two failed marriages, and for leaving him suicidal.

The troubled sports star’s difficulties were in the public eye throughout the last decade – he was arrested in Los Angeles in 2006 after being accused of stealing from a fellow passenger on a plane he was travelling on to Bermuda to play with the Classic Wallabies. 

Daly says he finally got clean in 2013. Yesterday he was sentenced to 500 hours of community service and banned from driving until 2024 over a driving offence, The Australian reported.

The 51-year-old gave evidence against the Marist brother at the Royal Commission into child abuse within the Catholic Church, which has so far identified 1,880 alleged offenders and 4,444 victims, taken from incidents reported between 1980 and 2015. Daly’s alleged abuser is still alive and believed to be in his 80s, The Daily Telegraph reported.