Steve Walters

The Walters brothers were all part of the Ipswich connection, though they were born in Rockhampton. Their backyard games became part of their playing legend. Steve was the eldest; Kerrod and Kevin were twins. Steve and Kerrod were hookers, Kevin a five-eighth. They all performed great feats for Queensland and Australia.

Mal Meninga once wrote that he regarded Steve Walters as ''the best hooker of all time''.

Meninga praised the way he read the game, and suggested he was ''without peer as a dummy-half runner'', while his Queensland teammate's passing from dummy half was also unsurpassed.

''His defence is close to immaculate,'' Meninga continued, ''and I believe he could lead a side at any level of the game''.

Steve Walters made his reputation at Canberra, where he played in three winning grand final sides. He played 228 first-grade games for the club between 1986 and 1996, and later played briefly for North Queensland and Newcastle.

Unlucky in 1990 to miss selection on the Kangaroo tour, when his brothers were in the squad, it wasn't until the following year that Steve made his Test debut, against New Zealand, but from then to the end of the 1994 Kangaroo tour he was a fixture in the Australian line-up.

When Steve was injured during the Papua New Guinea tour of 1991, Kerrod replaced him. A year later, all three brothers were part of Australia's World Cup squad.