Cyril Aston Eastlake (21 August 1930 – 30 September 2007) was a New Zealand
rugby league player who represented his nation in the sport. He captained
New Zealand at the
1954 World Cup
Events
January
* January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany.
* January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting.
* January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ...
and also played at the
1960 World Cup.
Early years
Eastlake was from
Auckland and was educated at
St Peter's College where he played
rugby union. He started playing
rugby league without realising it, when somebody knocked at the family house door one Saturday morning wanting to know whether the young Eastlake would play football because he was short of a player. He was due to play rugby union for
St Peter's in the afternoon but he was told that he could have an "extra game". Eastlake said: "I enjoyed the game tremendously and had some success in scoring a couple of tries, mainly because both sides appeared to be a few players short and there seemed to be a lot more room to run before someone tackled you. Towards the end of the game I realised there had been very few lineouts. In fact, I couldn't remember one. Also the rucks were over so quickly that I missed seeing most of them. But all in it was a good game". In the afternoon, Eastlake played rugby union for
St Peter's College against
Sacred Heart
The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus ( la, Cor Jesu Sacratissimum) is one of the most widely practised and well-known Catholic devotions, wherein the heart of Jesus is viewed as a symbol of "God's boundless and passionate love for mankind". This devo ...
. "Both sides had full teams of 15, and the game was full of lineouts and rucks, so much so that I began to wonder whether that morning's game was a different code altogether". This began Eastlake's move to rugby league and a long association with the
Ellerslie club.
Playing career
Eastlake played for
Ellerslie in the
Auckland Rugby League
The Auckland Rugby League (ARL) is the governing body for the sport of rugby league in the Auckland Region of New Zealand. It is responsible for rugby league in the region, including both club and school rugby league. It began in 1910 when the fi ...
competition and also represented
Auckland. Eastlake was a member of the
New Zealand national rugby league team, "the Kiwis", from 1951. He represented New Zealand in 79 games, including 28 tests. In 1954 he was the captain of the New Zealand team at the first
Rugby League World Cup competition in France.
During that World Cup competition, Eastlake's qualities were described in the opening game of the tournament, against France (captained by the legendary
Puig Aubert). "The New Zealand captain, C. A. Eastlake, was an inspiration at centre, both in attack and defence. Time and again he halted dangerous back movements by holding
Antoine Jiminez
Antoine Jimenez (9 May 1929 – 19 November 2019) was a French rugby league player and coach who represented France in two Rugby League World Cups.
Personal life
Outside the pitch, he was a teacher. Playing career
A great promise of rugby un ...
. It was no mean performance to reduce Jiminez, a highly ranked centre last year, practically to impotence. In addition, Eastlake initiated attacks with dash and resource. He showed speed to score New Zealand's second try, while he was also responsible for
R J McKay
R, or r, is the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ar'' (pronounced ), plural ''ars'', or in Irelan ...
scoring." Although the game was won by France by 22 points to 13, Eastlake remained optimistic saying, "We will do better now we have some match play. We can still win the cup. We were all a little stiff and the team took a long time to settle down. However, it was a good fast game, and I enjoyed it." Eastlake's optimism was not borne out. He retired following the
1960 World Cup.
[Coffey, John and Bernie Wood ''Auckland, 100 years of rugby league, 1909–2009'', 2009. . p.183.]
In the Australian 1963 Rugby League season Eastlake was a
player-coach for a New South Wales country team.
Honours
Eastlake was inducted into the New Zealand 'Legends of League' in 1995, an acknowledgement of the skills he brought to the game during an international career that ran from 1951 to 1960. In 2012 he was posthumously named the
Ellerslie Eagles Player of the Century at the club's centenary celebrations and in the same year he was honoured by his old school, St Peter's College, by being named an "
old boy of distinction".
[St Peter's College Press Release, September 2012,''St Peter's College honours 'old boys of distinction' ''.]
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eastlake, Cyril
1930 births
Rugby league players from Auckland
New Zealand rugby league players
Auckland rugby league team players
Ellerslie Eagles players
New Zealand national rugby league team players
People educated at St Peter's College, Auckland
2007 deaths
New Zealand national rugby league team captains
Rugby league centres
Rugby league wingers
Rugby league fullbacks