
Leo Brian Steele is Wellington’s oldest living All Black, and the second oldest nationwide (at the time of this profile being published on 18 September 2024). Steele was born on 19 January 1929, not long after the oldest All Black Wiliam McCaw (Southland, born 27 August 1927).
Both players made their All Blacks debuts in the same match – against Newcastle in Australia on 11 June 1951.
Steele was also Onslow’s only All Black, that club subsequently merging with Athletic and Karori in 1983 to form Western Suburbs. Onslow would go on to win the Jubilee Cup twice, in 1955 and 1962.
The son of a train driver, Steele lived in the railway settlement at Tarikaka St, Ngaio, several minutes’ walk down the road from Nairnville Park.
Good fortune in the form of injury to All Black incumbent and Wellington’s first choice halfback Vince Bevan (who was playing for the Athletic club at the time) and his own good form in the third and final All Blacks trial on 26 May 1951 saw Steele selected for the All Blacks for their Australian tour of June and July that year.
As was the custom, players had to wait around at the after-match underneath the stand after the trial to find out publicly if they had been picked and his name was read out amongst others such as Ron Jarden who would star on the tour.
Steele made the team, with Waikato’s Ponty Reid (later to captain the All Blacks and play in the tests against the 1956 Springboks) being the other halfback. While Steele made the team from the trial match, Reid played in the North-South match which was the curtain-raiser that day. Both players were lightweights, Steele slightly taller and heavier at 5 foot 5 and 66kg.
This All Blacks team reclaimed the Bledisloe Cup, after Australia had won it two years earlier.
Steele played in eight matches, including in all three Tests which the All Blacks won 3-0. The first two were at the Sydney Cricket Ground, the third was at Brisbane in front of one of the smallest ever crowds for a rugby international involving New Zealand of approximately 4,300.
On returning, he played the final match of the campaign against an Auckland representative selection.
1951 All Blacks team to Australia. Brian Steele top right.
This would prove to be Steele’s ninth and last match for the All Blacks. Indeed, he never received another trial or national selection of any sort.
He returned to play for Wellington in 1951, but Vince Bevan’s fitness was on the improve so Steele only made a couple of appearances in domestic rugby.
1952 would be Steele’s most fruitful year in the halfback’s position. He played a full season for Onslow as they finished mid-table in the Jubilee Cup and then played a full represeantive season for the Wellington A team and was vice-captain.
Steele made 10 appearances for Wellington that winter, with notable victories being against Taranaki (twice), Auckland, Canterbury, Hawke’s Bay and Southland.
The 1952 Wellington team – Steele front row, fourth from the right.
He didn’t play any games for the Wellington A team in 1953 as Vince Bevan (8 games) and former Canterbury All Blacks and by now University club halfback Larry Savage (6) were Wellington’s halfbacks that year.
Steele transferred to Horowhenua in 1954 and played for the Shannon club, making six appearances in his fifth and final year of first-class rugby, aged 25.
He played 42 first-class games during his career.
Steele worked as a carpenter. He moved to the Hawke’s Bay in the late 1960s, settling in Hastings.
Another sporting pursuit of Steele’s was marathon running and he completed over 25 marathons.
Lindsay Knight’s All Blacks profile of Steele also says: “More recently Steele has been in the news for fundraising efforts for the various Telethons. In 1978 he lived in a hut on top of a pole and in 1990 in a caravan on scaffolding in a shopping centre carpark. In 2005, on his 76th birthday, he walked 76 laps (nearly 19 miles) of Nelson Park, Hastings, to raise money for the Indian Ocean tsunami appeal.”
Steele is also the great uncle of former All Blacks fullback Christian Cullen.
References:
- Akers, Clive. New Zealand Rugby Register 1870-2015. New Zealand Rugby Museum, 2016.
- All Blacks A-Z profile Leo Brian Steele, by Lindsay Knight
- Chester, Rod, Palenski, Ron, McMillan, Neville. Men in Black Commemorative 20th Century Addition, Moa Beckett, 2000, Auckland.
- Swan, A.C. History of New Zealand Rugby Football. Vol. 2 1946-1957. Whitcombe & Tombs, Wellington 1958.
- Wellington’s Rugby History 1951-79. By Bob Fox, with assistance by Paul Elenio and Joseph Romanos (Evening Post) and Alex Veysey and Ian Gault (Dominion), with statistics compiled by Gordon Jackson (1951-68) and Alby Butterworth (1969-78). Tolan Printing Company, Wellington, 1979.
- Headline photograph: L. B. Steele. Crown Studios Ltd :Negatives and prints. Ref: 1/2-207441-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23061468