South Sydney Rabbitoh player No. 421 passed away on June 25, aged 95. Les Brennan will be remembered by family and friends as one of the most kind-hearted people on the planet and will be in the rugby league history books for his short but outstanding career.
Brennan was a quick and agile winger who made his first-grade debut for South Sydney in 1954. He scored 29 tries in 19 matches that season; a feat that still stands as the fifth most in a first-grade season. It stood at third for 67 years (behind Dave Brown’s 38 tries in 1935 and Ray Preston’s 34 tries in 1954) until Alex Johnston surpassed it with 30 in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons.
In 1954, Brennan played alongside one of the greatest to ever play the game, Clive Churchill. They ended up beating Newtown in the grand final, but by the following morning, Brennan had forgotten all about the game and woke up in a hotel on the Gold Coast (the match was played at the SCG). He only discovered South Sydney had won when he read the morning newspaper.
It turned out Brennan had suffered a heavy concussion as well as a crushed vertebra during the match, hence his poor memory of the previous day’s events. The injury was so severe he only returned for a further five matches the following season before retiring.
Brennan also flew up to the Gold Coast after the match to continue his honeymoon with his new wife, Margaret. The two had married earlier that week.
In 2021, Brennan was awarded Rabbitohs life membership for his service to the club. A large part of this was his work as a junior referee for 20 years.
Outside of rugby league, he worked at the Department of Motor Transport as a paymaster for 43 years.
Brennan is one of just seven players to finish their career with more tries than games played (minimum 20 games). Of these players, Brennan has the highest strike rate (1.33 per game), scoring 32 tries in 24 games.
Can I tell you when my uncle was buried yesterday that not one representative from souths was in attendance