Michael Patrick Lynagh was born in Brisbane on 25 October 1963. He was educated at Queensland University and played club rugby there and, later, for Treviso in Italy and Saracens in England. In Australia he played state rugby for Queensland. Michael Lynagh's first internationals for the Wallabies were as an inside centre on the 1984 Grand Slam tour of the U.K., but he later moved to fly-half where he became his country's most capped player in that position. He was a member of the 1991 team that won the Rugby World Cup in England. He captained Australia in 15 of his 72 tests between 1984 and 1995 and he set a new world record of 911 points. He also scored 33 points for the Wallabies in the two matches against the Barbarians in 1984 and 1988 in Cardiff.