Star's family on pilgrimage to rugby roots

Wanganui Rugby

The granddaughter of a Wanganui rugby legend has come to New Zealand to see where he became a star.

Charles Edward "Bronco" Seeling was widely considered the best forward of the famous 1905 to 1906 All Black Originals team that won 34 of 35 games on their tour of Britain, France and North America. Their only loss was to Wales - 0-3.

Seeling was killed in car crash in Manchester, England, in 1956 which also killed his wife and daughter. His granddaughter, Margaret Morris, survived the crash aged 18 months and was brought up by her older sister.

Now Mrs Morris - from Didcot, near Oxford - is on a pilgrimage to New Zealand with her husband and said her grandfather was always proud of his New Zealand heritage and had taught her siblings the haka.

Seeling played 39 matches for the All Blacks from 1904 to 1908, including 11 tests before controversially switching codes and making his name in Britain as a league player.

As a loose forward, he was a big man for the time at 1.83m and 86kg and English rugby writer E H D Sewell noted: "Search where one may, a better forward than Seeling does not exist."

Charles Seeling Junior has donated his father's 1905-06 Auckland rugby union cap, a gold medal from the 1905-06 Originals tour, and an oil painting of Seeling to the New Zealand Rugby Museum.

Seeling's grandson Dylan has donated a chalk drawing of a cartoon of Seeling, while another grandson donated a 1906-07 Auckland rugby union cap to the museum.

Seeling's sporting career began in Wanganui, but in 1903, he moved to Auckland and a year later became part of the Auckland side that held the Ranfurly Shield from 1904 to 1909.

In 1910, he signed for English rugby league club Wigan and in the next three years scored 54 tries and appeared in three consecutive league finals.

He went on to make more than 200 appearances for the club and was captain for three years. His name was one of only six chiselled in stone at Wigan's home ground of Central Park.

In 1996, Seeling was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame and in 2001 became one of the New Zealand Rugby League's Legends of League.