RUGBY IN MOURNING FOR LOSS OF PILECKI
FORMER Australian prop Stan Pilecki, who played 18 Tests for the Wallabies, has died aged 70.
Pilecki died yesterday after a short period of ill health, in the company of his two daughters at their Jindalee home in Queensland.
He had become the first player to log 100 caps for Queensland, in a career that spanned three decades.
Pilecki earned his first Wallabies cap in 1978, at the age of 31, before tours of the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Fiji and Argentina in a seven-year international career.
He was born in a German refugee camp in 1947 before his family emigrated three years later to Australia.
Such was Pilecki’s influence on rugby in Queensland, the Reds’ Player of the Year award, the Pilecki Medal, is named in his honour.
A stalwart of Wests Rugby Club in Brisbane, Pilecki played 221 A grade games and was the first Wallaby from the club.
Rugby Australia president Tony Shaw said: “We’ve lost one, if not the greatest characters of our sport”.
“His impact on the field was more than matched by the contribution he made away from rugby.”
Simon Poidevin added: “Today Australian Rugby lost one of its great characters in Stan Pilecki. Stan was one of the most-authentic rugby players the world has seen, universally loved by all those who had the privilege to play alongside him and feared by those who opposed him.”