Preamble: Michael Stewart Millard 1929 – 2008.
Mick was a member of the inaugural 1959 premiership team, and in the first decade played 117 games for the Wagga Wagga Waratahs Rugby Club. Mick was awarded a Life Membership in 1976. Before joining Waratahs, Mick played with Ag. College from 1955 where he played with Beres Ellwood, Bob Conolly, Ben Purcell and Bob Stewart, and Wagga City Rugby Club in 1958.
Mick held several records including the most premierships, most consecutive premierships, and premierships with three different clubs – Ag, College 1957, Wagga City 1958 and Waratahs 1959. Mick also played at a representative level. Mick played his last few games for Waratahs in 1972. He continued to be a staunch supporter of the Club and attended his last game a few days prior to his passing on the 17 August 2008.
In 2008, Janet Millard presented the inaugural perpetual award in memory of Mick – The Mick Millard Memorial Award for First XV Best Forward. The recipient was Ian Croft.

Mick Millard (left) and Dave Heckendorf enjoying the 50th Year Golden Jubilee celebrations of Wagga Wagga Waratahs in May 2008 which was attended by 350 past and present players and supporters.

Stealing the Ball out of the Opposition’s Rucks – Written by Mick Millard ⁹

When Dave Heckendorf joined the Waratahs, he had been playing Aussie Rules. He partnered me in the second row and quizzed me on where to run in broken play. I replied basically that we would head straight for where the play was going to break down so we could get the ball back. He wasn’t satisfied with that answer, so l added a statement he claims to remember to this day:

“If you can’t reach out and touch me, you’ll be in the wrong spot.“

Over the five or six years we played together we developed a very high degree of understanding. On the field we did a few things that weren’t in the book, and we became fairly good at stealing the ball out of the opposition’s rucks.

‘The way we used to do it, stealing the ball was very much a combined effort and there were several factors which had to come together to pull it off.
Read the play well enough to be there before the scene becomes too congested.
Go into their ruck/maul from the angle which gives you the opportunity to establish the most superior body position relative to the opponent with the ball. His arm strength may be as good as, or even better than, yours so you will need the body position that gives you the edge.
Have a team mate right behind you who is expecting you to get the ball and is ready to rip it out of your grasp and hand it back out of the danger zone.

Every time you combine those factors you will come up with the ball, but the player who was in the position to do the actual stealing should not be seen as having been more important than the player who was in the position to accept it from him and move it back out of harm’s way.

Source: A History of the Wagga Wagga Waratahs’ Rugby Club 1959 – 2015
^{9 Mick Millard’s personal papers}