Australian Football

After winning North Albury’s 1958 best and fairest award as a fifteen year old Brian Leahy was snapped up by Melbourne the following year and added to the club’s supplementary list. The 1959 season saw him playing thirds and seconds football and demonstrating such consistently good form that he was handed his senior debut in the opening round of the 1960 season.

Nicknamed ‘Wrecker’, Leahy remained a fixture in the Demons seniors all year, culminating in being named on the bench for the grand final clash with Collingwood. Melbourne duly won, with Leahy playing a cameo role. At the age of seventeen years and 233 days he was the second youngest VFL premiership player in history.

Of fairly substantial build (185cm, 83kg) he boasted considerable pace and was generally deployed as a half back flanker. In 1964 he combined with Brian Roet and Tony Anderson to give the Dees arguably the best half back line in the competition. Sadly for Leahy, however, he missed that year’s winning grand final against Collingwood with a thigh injury.

More injury problems restricted him to just one senior appearance in 1965 and he retired the following season having played 79 VFL games and kicked two goals. He later made aborted attempts at reviving his playing career at VFA teams Yarraville and Northcote.

Author - John Devaney