Russel Gartner (born 16 September 1955), also known by the nickname of "Frog eyes", is an Australian former rugby league footballer who played in the 1970s and 1980s.
A fast and tall Centre or Winger, Russel Gartner started playing first grade in the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership in 1975 with the Manly-Warringah club.
[3] In 1978, Gartner was again a stand out performer for the Sea Eagles, scoring 10 tries for the season (second only in the team to winger Tom Mooney who crossed for 11), and playing in their drawn Grand Final against Cronulla-Sutherland, before scoring two tries, the second being a 70-metre effort where Manly threw the ball wide from a scrum and Gartner easily out paced the Cronulla chasers despite going into the match having torn his hamstring while scoring in the Preliminary final win over Western Suburbs, in the 16-0 rout of the Sharks in the Grand Final replay played just two days later.
Following his two try performance in the Grand Final replay, Gartner was a shock omission from the 1978 Kangaroo tour in which 7 of his team mates (fullback Graham Eadie, halfbacks John Gibbs and Steve Martin, hooker and Sea Eagles captain Max Krilich, five-eighth Alan Thompson, and forwards Ian Thomson and Bruce Walker) were selected to tour.
At the end of the 1981 season, Gartner transferred to the Eastern Suburbs club where he played for two years before moving to Balmain.