{"id":35908,"date":"2025-09-22T02:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T02:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/35908\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T02:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T02:32:07","slug":"former-all-blacks-manawatu-winger-stuart-freebairn-dies-aged-93","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/35908\/","title":{"rendered":"Former All Blacks, Manawat\u016b winger Stuart Freebairn dies, aged 93"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"NzpREUNDumYW\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cRest in peace, All Black #554 \u2013 forever a part of the black jersey\u2019s legacy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"NzpREUNDumYW\" style=\"display:none\">Freebairn was born in New Plymouth and began his career in the forwards, playing rugby at Feilding Agricultural High School, but never in the First XV.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NzpREUNDumYW\" style=\"display:none\">After leaving school, he began playing at Feilding Club, where he eventually moved into the backline, and was selected for Manawat\u016b, where he caught the attention of the All Blacks selectors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NzpREUNDumYW\" style=\"display:none\">A hat-trick for Manawat\u016b was enough to earn a trip on the plane to Britain but Freebairn was unable to crack the test team, with Ron Jarden and Morrie Dixon on the wings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NzpREUNDumYW\" style=\"display:none\">Upon returning home, he took a break from rugby to focus on his pharmacy studies. His father\u2019s depression struggles had left an impression on him and those around him told him to not put rugby ahead of his studies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NzpREUNDumYW\" style=\"display:none\">He later returned to play for Manawat\u016b, eventually playing 84 times, scoring 53 tries, which was a record until Ken Granger surpassed it in 1979.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Former All Blacks Stuart Freebairn, Don McIntosh, Neven MacEwan, Theo Kipa (the oldest living M\u0101ori All Black) and Keith Quinn. Rugby Museum director Stephen Berg is behind. Photo \/ Judith Lacy\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Former All Blacks Stuart Freebairn, Don McIntosh, Neven MacEwan, Theo Kipa (the oldest living M\u0101ori All Black) and Keith Quinn. Rugby Museum director Stephen Berg is behind. Photo \/ Judith Lacy<\/p>\n<p class=\"NzpREUNDumYW\" style=\"display:none\">Despite featuring in numerous All Blacks trials, he was never picked again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NzpREUNDumYW\" style=\"display:none\">Away from the field, Freebairn was also a very capable athlete, competing in long jump and relay events at the National Athletic Championships on a number of occasions. He also helped start the Feilding Squash Club in 1967.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NzpREUNDumYW\" style=\"display:none\">He later owned Stuart Freebairn Pharmacy in Feilding and advertised in the Manawat\u016b Guardian\u2019s first edition on June 21, 1972.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NzpREUNDumYW\" style=\"display:none\">His wife Collen passed away in October 2023 after a period of illness. The pair had been married for more than 66 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NzpREUNDumYW\" style=\"display:none\">Brian Steele is the oldest living All Black, aged 93, while Mick Bremner is a year younger.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NzpREUNDumYW\" style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/author\/ben-francis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/author\/ben-francis\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ben Francis<\/a> is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers breaking sports news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cRest in peace, All Black #554 \u2013 forever a part of the black jersey\u2019s legacy.&#8221; Freebairn was born&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[33347,18919,5263,8136,6179,7126,2740,33346,10509,111,139,69,213,6723,33345],"class_list":["post-35908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-33347","tag-aged","tag-all","tag-blacks","tag-died","tag-dies","tag-former","tag-freebairn","tag-manawat","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports","tag-stuart","tag-winger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}