
LA “Shag” Thomas played several seasons for both Petone in club rugby and Wellington in representative rugby between 1917-28 and two years in the Hawke’s Bay in 1920-21.
Thomas won four Wellington Senior A Club Championship titles with Petone, including three in succession 1922-24, and he made the All Blacks in 1925 and played three matches for the national team in Australia – albeit part of a second string All Blacks as the main body who had just toured Britain and France with the ‘Invincibles’ were not involved.
Thomas was listed as a lock or a loose forward and played both positions interchangeably throughout his career. He was not a big man, being 1.80m tall and 82kg, but was good enough to be a mainstay of every club and representative team he played in over a decade.
Thomas was born in Kaiapoi in Canterbury on 13 August 1897. Research for this profile has yielded no further information about him until 1917 when he played for the Senior A champions Petone and later that season for Wellington. Although eligible, he didn’t go to war and there was no Wellington Senior A competition played in 1916.
Nineteen-year old L.A. Thomas was playing for Petone in 1917 as the Senior A competition tentatively resumed and Petone were crowned champions. He was in Petone’s team with two of his brothers, Walter Thomas and Charles Thomas.
Representative rugby resumed and Wellington beat Wairarapa 39-3 on 25 August 1917 in the first represeantive match played on Athletic Park since the war broke out. Wellington played Auckland in home and away matches on 8 September and 6 October. Thomas scored a try in the 21-11 win in Wellington and two tries in the 12-20 loss in Auckland.
Thomas (along with his brothers) returned to Petone and Wellington for 1918 and 1919. Poneke won both club rugby titles these years, as Petone and Poneke embarked on a healthy rivalry that was to span the rest of Thomas’ career.
Thomas played a further three matches for Wellington in these two years, before his work as a clerk took him to Hawke’s Bay for two seasons and he played for the Napier Pirates in club rugby and for Hawke’s Bay.
He returned to Wellington in 1922 to assist Petone to the Senior Championship, playing in the 10-5 win over Poneke in front of 16,000 spectators to decide the spoils. But he played just three times for the representative team in a season of few highlights that saw Wellington lose the Ranfurly Shield to Hawke’s Bay and win just half of their 16 games overall.
In 1923, Petone again beat Poneke in the championship round, winning 11-3, with Thomas again playing a leading role throughout the season. He also had his most prolific season for Wellington in 1923, making eight appearances, which included him scoring two tries in a 30-18 win over Southland, playing in a 0-0 draw with Wairarapa, and beating Otago 26-6. He also played in the side beaten 10-6 by Hawke’s Bay in 1923.
Thomas was in the combined Manawatu-Wellington XV which beat the NSW touring side of 1923 29-16.

He won the Senior A Championship for Petone for the final time in 1924. In a dominant season, Petone were unbeaten all season until early August when they went down to Berhampore 8-4. The next weekend saw them beat Poneke 14-6 in the season finale.
He made another six appearances for Wellington in 1924, in a poor year that saw Wellington win just four of 11 matches. He received the first of two All Black trials this year too but missed out on the touring All Blacks to Britian and France.
Thomas played for Petone for another four seasons but wasn’t in a championship winning team.
1925 was the season he made the All Blacks and toured New South Wales with the second-string national team. He played in three of the six matches in Australia. One of these games was as a substitute.
The 1925 tour was bookended a departure match against Wellington on 3 June (Wellington won 10-6) and an arrival game in Wellington against a combined Wellington-Manawatu-Horowhenua team (the All Blacks won 25-11). Thomas didn’t play in either of these games, which were both played in poor weather and conditions at Athletic Park.
Now a senior player in the pack, he made another eight appearances for Wellington in 1926 – which included playing in the team that lost 58-8 to Hawke’s Bay for the Ranfurly Shield on 14 August, scoring a try in Wellington’s 28-16 win over the New Zealand Maori side on 21 July, and playing in Wellington’s 21-14 win over the All Blacks in a pre-tour match in Wellington on 30 June.
Thomas played for the North Island in their annual match against the South Island in 1926, while the following year in 1927 he played five times for Wellington and trialled for the All Blacks for their 1928 tour to South Africa.
Thomas played 39 first-class matches for Wellington, five for Hawke’s Bay and 53 overall. He scored 19 first-class tries.
In 1934-35 Thomas served the Poverty Bay union as a representative selector.
Thomas died in Lower Hutt on 3 June 1971, aged 74.
References:
- Akers, Clive. New Zealand Rugby Register 1870-2015. New Zealand Rugby Museum, 2016.
- All Blacks A-Z profile L.A. Thomas, by Lindsay Knight
- Dominion – various rugby reports 1916-1928
- Griffin, Don and Gallagher, Peter. True Blue. The first 100 years of the Petone Rugby Football Club Incorporated 1885-1985. Apex Print, Petone, 1985.
- Swan, A.C. History of New Zealand Rugby Football 1870-1945. A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, 1948.
- Swan, Arthur C.; Jackson, Gordon F. W. (1952). Wellington’s Rugby History 1870 – 1950. Wellington, New Zealand: A. H. & A. W. Reed
- Headline Photo credit: A. Thomas. Crown Studios Ltd :Negatives and prints. Ref: 1/2-204187-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22791934