{"id":368680,"date":"2025-12-24T10:44:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T10:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/368680\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T10:44:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T10:44:19","slug":"former-80-game-southland-rugby-player-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/368680\/","title":{"rendered":"Former 80-game Southland rugby player dies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Eighty-game former Southland rugby player Phil Johnson has died suddenly at age 59, in what\u2019s a shock to many, including those in the rugby community.<\/p>\n

Johnson was a pivotal player at centre for Southland in the late 80s and early 90s, and continued to play a key role in Southland rugby following his playing days when he took up refereeing.<\/p>\n

Johnson made his provincial debut as a 22-year-old in 1988, and he was part of the Southland team that beat Canada that year.<\/p>\n

He also lined up against other international touring teams in Invercargill, including in the loss to the British & Irish Lions in 1993, who he scored a try against, and also a showdown with South Africa in 1994.<\/p>\n

Johnson was part of one of Southland rugby\u2019s more famous wins in 1994 when they beat Hawke\u2019s Bay in the Division 2 final at Rugby Park in Invercargill to be promoted to Division 1 in the NPC.<\/p>\n

The last of his 80 games for Southland was the nail-biting 13-12 loss to King Country at Rugby Park in 1995, which saw Southland drop from Division 1 to Division 2 in the NPC.<\/p>\n

On top of his pivotal role in the maroon jersey of Southland, Johnson was also a key figure in one of Southland club rugby\u2019s most dominant runs.<\/p>\n

Johnson was part of the Invercargill Blues team, which won eight straight Galbraith Shield titles from 1987 to 1994.<\/p>\n

He also made a significant contribution in Southland as a rugby referee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eighty-game former Southland rugby player Phil Johnson has died suddenly at age 59, in what\u2019s a shock to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-368680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}