Brendan Cannon was educated at St. Laurence’s College in Brisbane and represented Queensland and Australia in the under 19s in 1992. Weighing 108kg and 187cm in height, he had the perfect body build and the strength for the hooker position.
Cannon was a tough customer all-around for the opposition and featured for the Reds, Waratahs and Western Force in Super Rugby. He started his Super Rugby career with the Reds playing 19 from 1996-99, he then joined the Waratahs playing 69 games between 2000 and 2005 and finally, he represented the Western Force nine times in 20006.
He had difficulty breaking into the Wallaby side early on his career and only earned his Wallaby debut in 2000. At the time Cannon was competing with for a position that was being contest by the likes of Phil Kearns, Mark Bell, Michael Foley, Marco Caputo, Sean Hardman, Jeremy Paul, David Nucifora, and Tai McIsaac.
He made his first test start against France in 2002, having being a member of the Wallaby squad that faced the 2001 British and Irish Lions tour to Australia.
Cannon was in stark contrast to Jeremy Paul, who was the first choice hooker at the time, in that he did not scoring as many tries but the aggressive hooker was solid at set pieces, terrific tackler and a real menance at the breakdown - providing the Wallabies with real depth in the position.
In April 2007 Cannon retired from professional rugby, after suffering a serious neck injury against the Crusaders in Christchurch. He made a total of 42 appearances for the Wallabies and 98 Super Rugby appearances.
JW April 2017
Career
 |
Queensland Reds Hooker |
1996 - 2000 |
 |
NSW Waratahs Hooker |
2000 - 2005 |
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Australia Hooker |
2001 - 2006 |
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Western Force Hooker |
2006 - 2007 |
