Ella, Beachley official Legends in Sport Hall of Fame

Almost 40 years since his final test as a Wallaby, the revered rugby union five-eighth joined seven-time world champion surfer Layne Beachley and triple-Brownlow Medallist Bob Skilton as this year's Sport Australia Hall of Fame Legends on Monday.

The elevation to legend status is the most celebrated honour that can be bestowed on an Australian athlete, coach or administrator.

"I thought I was starting to fade away, which was something I was happy to do," Ella told AAP.

"It doesn't make sense to me. I don't know what to say about it. I never expected this.

"To think, I haven't played rugby since I was 25 and I'm 60-something so it's been a long time but I'm honoured."

Ella was the first Indigenous Australian to captain a national sports team, doing so on 10 occasions from 1982 to 1983.

The Sydney local is perhaps most famous for his astonishing performance in the 1984 rugby union tour of Britain and Ireland, where he scored a try in each successful test over England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

He shocked the sporting world when he retired that year at 25.

"I enjoyed my time playing for the Wallabies but it was time for me to get away, get a job and earn a living," Ella said.

"Not that I was desperate to get a job."

Having thought of quitting the sport before reaching her first world championship title in 1998, Beachley felt the same surprise about her elevation.

Honing her talent as a teenager riding the waves in Manly, Beachley would go on to claim an unbroken streak of world championship titles from 1998 to 2003 - an unparalleled feat in surfing.

"I came dead last in the first five events I ever competed in as a professional surfer," she told AAP.

"There were plenty of times when I wanted to quit, I was working four jobs earning $8000 a year.

"It was hard. There were battles in the boardroom, there were battles at the beach. It was sexist, it was misogynistic.

"It was challenging but at the end of the day all those battles were worth fighting because I'm standing here knowing that women's surfing is in a better place than where I found it."

Beachley retired in 2008, two years after her final world title.

The Sport Australia Hall of Fame also welcomed seven new inductees: renowned dual Olympian Nova Peris, rowing greats Kim Brennan and Tim McLaren, three-time Paralympic gold medallist Kurt Fearnley, aerial skiing Olympic champion Lydia Lassila, former North Queensland Cowboys captain Johnathan Thurston and former Socceroo Tim Cahill.

Australian Associated Press