One of the most courageous players to lace on a rugby league boot has died.
Dragons favourite Mark Shulman, believed to be the smallest man to play the game, passed away on the weekend aged 70.
Shulman played for the Dragons in the 1977 grand final against Parramatta and succeeded the great Billy Smith in the halfback role, winning universal respect for his skills and tenacity.
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Repeatedly told he was too small to play the game as a junior, he proved the experts wrong to make it to first grade and captained the Dragons at one stage.
“He was five foot nothing and 60 kilos but he was courageous,” Dragons legend Craig Young told Wide World of Sports today.
“He would put his body on the line to stop blokes twice his size and he had no fear – the boys loved him.
“He kept very fit and died very suddenly – the early diagnosis is that it was a brain aneurysm.”
Shulman was a local Dragons junior who went on to coach Cronulla in the lower grades after his retirement in 1978 due to back and kidney injuries.
His death completes a sad week for rugby league following the passing of Dragons legend Johnny Raper and Kiwi favourite Olsen Filipaina.
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