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Rugby league’s smallest ever player Mark Shulman dies suddenly

The smallest player to have ever played rugby league at a professional level has passed away.

70-year-old Mark Shulman, who played for the Dragons in Australia, passed away over the weekend with what is believed to be a brain aneurysm.

Shulman played for the Dragons in the 1977 grand final against Parramatta, but it was a shock that he ever got that far after being told by numerous clubs that he would never make it as a professional rugby league player due to his diminutive figure.

“He was five foot nothing and 60 kilos but he was courageous,” Dragons legend Craig Young told Wide World of Sports.

“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 forced to retire in 1978 due to back and kidney injuries, but the local Dragons junior then went on to coach Cronulla in the lower grades after that.

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