Steve McDowall

At his best in the late 1980s Steve McDowall as a loosehead prop ranked among the world’s best and among the finest in the position produced by New Zealand.

Though not tall and under 1.83m McDowall was an extremely powerful man with his physique honed from his other sport, judo, in which he also won national honours, and his constant workouts with weights in gyms.

He was an excellent scrummager, a superb mauler and explosive when he burst frequently into the open, especially in his halcyon years between 1985 and 1990.

The bulk of McDowall’s representative career was with Auckland but he was a Bay of Plenty product and was one of a fine group of players from around Rotorua who emerged at around the same time such as Wayne Shelford and Hika Reid.

McDowall entered the Bay of Plenty representative side in 1982 and played 35 matches for the union over the next three seasons, adding to that tally with a sole appearance when briefly back in the Bay in 1989.

McDowall impressed for the Bay in a number of high profile games against the Lions in 1983 and in a narrow Ranfurly Shield loss to Canterbury in 1984. In each of the 1982 and 1984 seasons he was in respectively the national colts side and the New Zealand juniors, making inevitable a transfer to one of the country’s bigger unions.

He joined Auckland in 1985 and with selection in the Emerging Players and the All Black trials he emerged as a test contender. He was duly chosen for the tour of South Africa and when this was called off went instead on the replacement tour of Argentina, where he made his test debut.

In his first season with Auckland McDowall participated in the successful Ranfurly Shield challenge against Canterbury, scoring a crucial try. Over the next seven seasons McDowall was an Auckland mainstay and was involved in all of the province’s triumphs of the late 80s at Ranfurly Shield and NPC levels.

At the same time he became a stalwart of All Black sides, his career suffering only a minor glitch when he incurred a two-test suspension for going with the Cavaliers on the rebel tour of South Africa in 1986. He formed a mighty front row with fellow Aucklanders Sean Fitzpatrick and John Drake during the 1987 World Cup and then when Drake retired prematurely Fitzpatrick and McDowall formed another celebrated front row with Richard Loe.

There were some outstanding tours in this period in which this trio were dominant, to Australia in 1988, Wales and Ireland in 1989 and to France in 1990. But by the time of the 1991 World Cup some of the momentum was fast fading from what had been a formidable team and in 1992, having had 81 All Black matches including 46 tests, McDowall suddenly disappeared from the national side.

Under new coach Laurie Mains he retained his place for the centenary matches early in 1992 and for the series against the touring Irish. But he was supplanted for the tests on the Australian-South Africa tour with Olo Brown emerging and Loe switching to McDowall’s spot on the loosehead side of the scrum. McDowall’s only consolation was captaining the midweek All Blacks, albeit to a big loss to Sydney.

In 1993 McDowall also faded from Auckland sides with Brown and Craig Dowd the preferred props. In 1994 he moved to Wellington and had 10 games for that union. He then had a lengthy period overseas returning in 1998 at the age of 37 and with little regular play behind him to make three appearances for Auckland bringing his tally for the union to 109.

McDowall between 1988 and 1992 was a frequent New Zealand Maori player, captaining that side in 1991 and 1992. In all first class rugby he played 294 matches.