After completing his college course Mills took a teaching post in Grenfell, New South Wales where he played for the local rugby team.
At various times during the early decades of the 20th century there was a ban on British rugby league teams signing players from outside the United Kingdom.
[13] In total Mills made 386 appearances for Huddersfield,[1] scoring 288 tries,[13] and in a sport where injuries were common played 123 consecutive games between 28 December 1929 and 5 September 1932.
[14][15] Mills held several teaching posts in England both while playing rugby and after his retirement from the game.
[5] During the Great Depression of the early 1930s he was in charge of the youth section of a training centre for unemployed young people in Huddersfield.
In 1931 she petitioned for divorce on the basis of Mills's desertion of her by his move to England to play rugby.