A rugged and competitive prop, Roxburgh also had a political conscience.
He debuted in 1968 against the All Blacks and the following year played in all four tests of the Wallabies tour of South Africa, but he did not like what he saw of the country and its racist apartheid policies.
Two years later Roxburgh was one of seven national team players who said that they would refuse to play the touring Springboks, a stance which effectively meant his retirement from the sport.
A trained lawyer (Roxburgh missed a tour to Scotland and Ireland to complete his exams), he did not enjoy the work and retrained as a teacher.
His later years were marred by rapidly advancing dementia: upon his death on August 11 aged 77, his brain was donated to the Sydney Brain Bank for its ongoing research into the impact of head knocks on dementia. — Agencies
