Identification of Wests Player #84 has posed some difficulty. On the Wests Heritage List, player #84 was nominated as Herb Gilbert, the Australian international rugby league player. Herb Gilbert did play for Wests but not until 1917. So the question was, who is H. Gilbert who played for Wests First Grade in 1911?
Gilbert was not easy to find. A news article in the Sunday Times of April 1911 gave the first clue. The article was reporting on player movements at the start of the 1911 season. A number of Union players were trialling with rugby league clubs that year.
One of the players trialling with Wests was Gilbert (late of Sydney RU). This player was Harry Gilbert but at this point his forename was not known and it required some lateral thinking to unravel his true identity. Nevertheless, he will be referred to as Harry Gilbert in this profile for consistency and an explanation will be provided as to how is forename was ascertained.
