The oldest living All Black, Brian Steele, holding a picture from his All Black trial at his home in Havelock North. Photo / Jack Riddell
The oldest living All Black says fitness as you age is the key to a long and happy life.
Born in 1929 in Wellington, Brian Steele, 96, was chosen as halfback when he was 22, alongside future All Blacks captain Ponty Reid for the 1951 All Blacks tour of Australia.
Standing at 163cm and weighing in at 66kg at the time, or 5.3 feet, 10 stone and 5.5 pounds as Steele put it, he was not the biggest man on the team, but he was certainly wily and quick.
Steele was only Wellington’s second-string halfback with only a handful of first-class games behind him when he was chosen for the All Blacks.
He only got his chance to appear in the All Black trials because Wellington’s first-choice halfback Vince Bevan was forced out with injuries.
Steele’s trial saw him play three games in Wellington and Palmerston North.
He said it was a hard trial because everyone he was playing was so good.
“I enjoyed it and I was lucky to get through,” he said.
The All Blacks team headed to Sydney from Evans Bay in Wellington on a Tasman Empire Airways Limited (TEAL) flying boat, a flight that would take eight hours.
It was the ideal duration for Steele and the team’s other newbies to get their heads around actions and words for the haka.
Steele said he wouldn’t be able to perform it today as he doesn’t remember the words.
Playing in every game and test of the tour, Steele’s speed, ball handling, and smarts helped the All Blacks win every game and take the Bledisloe Cup back from the Wallabies after losing it to them in 1949.
Although Steele wasn’t able to get a try in the series, he did manage a dropped goal against a Combined XV in Wagga Wagga and a conversion when he and legendary winger Ron Jarden swapped their regular positions, with Steele typically being the one to hold the ball as Jarden kicked.
“That was the style of the time, and the balls were heavy because they were made of leather,” Steele said.
Despite a strong showing in the team at a young age, Steele never played for the All Blacks again, nor did he receive another trial.
But Steele is happy his record with the All Blacks will forever remain a 100% win rate.
Outside of rugby, Steele was a carpenter on high-rise buildings in Wellington until the city’s miserable weather motivated him to relocate to Havelock North in 1968 with his wife and five children.
After rugby, Steele became a mountain climber and marathon runner, completing 25 marathons around the world.
“You’ve got to keep fit, or you’ll lose it all,” he said of his motivation.
He also became a big supporter of charity through his work with Telethon, the 24-hour live television spectacular raising funds for charitable causes in the country that ran through the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
Steele’s charity work on the shows saw him live in a caravan atop scaffolding at the Write Price supermarket at the site of Hastings Pak‘nSave.
He also lived in a six-foot by four-foot (1.82m x 1.21m) hut atop a pole for a week, with people dropping food and donations into a bucket attached to a rope.
Steele said he remembered having to send down excrement in a separate bucket.
As Christian Cullen’s great-uncle, Steele said he never had any advice to give the Paekākāriki Express, because “he was that good”.
Today, Steele lives a happy life at a rest home in Havelock North and is a proud grandfather to 11 and great-grandfather to three.
He still watches the rugby and cheers on his old team, but he doesn’t enjoy watching it on TV as much as he would at the stadium.
“On the TV, the camera goes right in and when we go to the game, we sit in the stadium and we get to watch the full picture,” he said.
At 96, Steele is just four years away from becoming the second ever All Black to hit 100, and he’s sure he can make it.
“Come back and see me in 2029,” he said with a laugh.
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin, and Napier.