Brian Lockwood, a member of the last Great Britain team to win the Rugby League World Cup and a four-time Challenge Cup winner, has died aged 78. Once described as “tough as teak and polished as mahogany”, he combined the resilience of a stereotypical rugby league forward with the mercurial ball-playing skills of a halfback in a career spanning two decades, seven clubs and 461 matches.
The highlight of that career came on the international stage, in France in 1972. Great Britain had already beaten Australia earlier in the tournament when they met again in the final of the World Cup in Lyon. Capable of playing in numerous positions in the forward pack, Lockwood had started all of Britain’s previous games in the competition, at either prop or second-row. In was in the latter position that he took the field for the final, partnering fellow second-row Phil Lowe.
The two were instrumental in subduing an aggressive Australian pack in a dour, defense-oriented game, memorable only for a length-of-the-field try scored by British captain Clive Sullivan. The second British try was a close-range affair from hooker Mike Stephenson, but it was Lockwood’s inside pass that bamboozled the Australian defence. At the game’s conclusion the scores were tied 10-10, but the tournament’s arcane rules meant Great Britain lifted the trophy by dint of a better record in the group stages. Rugby Leaguer described Lockwood’s performance as “tireless, on a day when workrate was more important than flair”. Fifty-two years on, no Great Britain team has repeated the success.
Lockwood nearly did not take part in the tournament at all, following an altercation in a Perpignan supermarket before Britain’s opening match against Australia. Recollections differ on the cause but a brawl between Lockwood and Kangaroo captain Graeme Langlands was only defused when Lockwood’s teammates Chris Hesketh and Paul Charlton intervened. Both protagonists received fines rather than suspensions.
Born in Castleford, West Yorkshire, Brian was the only child of Audrey and Walter Lockwood. He first played rugby league while at Temple Street junior school in Castleford and then later at Ashton Road secondary modern. His ability was spotted by his hometown club, for whom he started in under-17s youth rugby including an appearance for Yorkshire schoolboys, playing opposite Lancashire’s Emlyn Hughes, who later switched to football, eventually becoming captain of Liverpool.
Lockwood signed professional terms in 1965, making his full Castleford debut the following year in a team – nicknamed “Classy Cas” – that was fast becoming renowned for skilful, expansive rugby that twice took them to success in the Challenge Cup final at Wembley. Lockwood played second-row in victories over Salford in 1969 and over Wigan in 1970.
However, his finest performance on club rugby’s highest stage came after he signed for Hull Kingston Rovers in January 1978. He had been lured there by his cousin, Hull KR player-coach Roger Millward, with whom he had previously starred at Castleford. His new club met local rivals Hull FC in the 1980 Challenge Cup final and, playing prop-forward, Lockwood won the Lance Todd Trophy as man of the match in Rovers’ 10-5 victory. Les Hoole’s history of the Challenge Cup describes Lockwood’s performance as “a formidable combination of class and determination. He had a side-step that many a centre would envy and a footballing brain far in advance of a lot of stand-off halves.”
Between his spells at Castleford and Hull KR, Lockwood spent three years in Australia, first at Canterbury-Bankstown, for whom he played in a losing Grand Final, before moving to Balmain Tigers, where he won the 1976 Amco Cup, supplying another trademark inside pass for team-mate Neil Pringle to score the winning try. In between his two stints in Australia Lockwood returned to Castleford for a season, refusing to break an agreement he had made, even though Balmain tempted him with a £10,000 salary increase.
Lockwood returned to England in late 1976 and played for Wakefield Trinity, combining playing with coaching, before his move to Hull. He wound down his career with spells at Oldham and lastly Widnes, with whom he won a fourth Challenge Cup in 1981, beating former club Hull KR. After retiring from playing, he briefly coached Huddersfield and Batley before becoming a publican with numerous businesses in West Yorkshire.
A provider, rather than scorer, of tries, he still managed 59 in his 18-season career, also winning the League Championship with Hull KR in 1978-79. He won nine full Great Britain caps, played three times for England, whom he captained to the 1979 European Championship, and six times for Yorkshire.
In 1967 he married Anne Stead. She and their three children, Kieron, Taryn and Jarrod, survive him.
• Brian Lockwood, rugby league player and publican, born 8 November 1946; died 10 October 2024
