Forty-five years since Arthur Beetson led Queensland to victory in one of the most significant games in rugby league history, his legacy continues through teenage medical student Ziggy Pidgeon.
A member of the Queensland Murri Under 16s team that played their NSW Koori counterparts in last year’s Interstate Challenge, Pidgeon is now studying to become a doctor at the University of New South Wales.
Like Broncos star Selwyn Cobbo, Pidgeon is from Cherbourg and achieved the honour of Dux of the Year at Murgon State High School, while starring in rugby league.
“Ziggy played at the Murri Carnival for the Sunshine Coast Bunyas, which is my side,” said Brad Beetson, Arthur’s son and a director of the Arthur Beetson Foundation.
“Through a relationship with the UNSW Nura Gili program, he picked a up a full scholarship to be a doctor and is studying medicine at the moment.”
UNSW Nura Gili Centre for Indigenous Programs director Scott Parlett said Pidgeon completed an intense three week pre-medicine course – “the equivalent of doing a 12-week semester in three weeks” – to gain acceptance by the university.
“He achieved really high, and it has really set the spark for other kids,” Parlett said. “Ziggy comes from the mission at Cherbourg, and he has studied at Murgon, becoming the Dux of the school, and now he is doing a doctorate at UNSW.
“That’s another part of Arthur’s legacy and what he set up for the game. He had so much involvement in rugby league, and was an absolute god in Queensland, but he was also really invested in that next part of life after football. One of the things that the foundation does, in particular, is they look at education.” As Johno the chair says, sport should be your Plan B, what is your Plan A.
The influence of Arthur Beetson touches almost every part of our game and so many of those within it.
He was the first Indigenous captain of any Australian national sporting team, the legend whose pride in the Maroons jersey ensured that State of Origin became sport’s greatest rivalry, a premiership winner, NSWRL Hall of Fame inductee and one of the four inaugural Rugby League Immortals.
Yet Beetson’s legacy extends far beyond his playing feats, as the likes of Dean Widders, Nathan Blacklock, David Peachey and Justin Hodges can attest after being scouted by him, along with so many others across the game.
“I even think that Dad signed Tino’s father [Fereti Fa’asuamaleaui] and bought him over from Samoa to the Roosters so Tino is here because Dad signed his father,” Brad Beetson said of the star forward many believe could be the next Maroons captain.
“Johnathan Thurston and all of those players have got a story about Dad. They are all role models as well. That influence has been passed down through all of those people who have been connected to Dad.
“It’s not only Indigenous people, the likes of Freddy [Brad] Fittler and all of those guys loved Dad because he just had an aura about him.”
Queensland players wore an Indigenous training jersey in the lead up to Origin I, which was designed by Arthur’s niece, Bianca Beetson, and presented by Brad, who is a 2025 recipient of the QRL’s Indigenous Community Award.
With brother, Mark, an assistant coach for the Sydney Roosters Jersey Flegg team and another of Beetson’s sons, Kristian Heffernan, working for the NSWRL as Indigenous and Community Program Manager, Brad said: “I always tell people that probably the greatest gift my father gave me is a love for the game. He gave that to a lot of people”.
With 29 per cent of grassroots players in Queensland being Indigenous, rugby league plays a unifying role in society and Beetson was – and continues to be – a leading figure in reconciliation.
“We are only 3.7 per cent of the population so rugby league is massive for us. We obviously love it,” Beetson said. “Dad being the first State of Origin captain [in 1980] and the first Indigenous captain [of an Australian sporting team in 1973] influenced so many people.
“Rugby league has played a major part in reconciliation over the years, and I think his standing carries a large weight in our community.”
