Chairman of Hawke’s Bay Rugby League in the 1980s and ‘90s Denis O’Reilly remembers asking league great Kevin Tamati who was the hardest man Tamati had played against, to which he replied: “Waka Leonard”.
“Waka coached nearly every team in the competition, including the rep team the Hawke’s Bay Unicorns. In this he passed on to every club and successive coaches the concept of cause-and-effect thinking – which is the think style of the warrior and predicates achievement thinking,” said O’Reilly.
In an interview with Hawke’s Bay Today in 2006, after he had won the Hawke’s Bay club rugby league grand final with the Maraenui Ford Phoenix, Leonard said there was no secret to his success.
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“You’ve got to learn to coach first, and that’s taken me 30 years. All up, I’ve been in this game about 46, 47 years, so I should know something about it.”
Leonard was described by the author of the article as “not exactly over the moon” after the win, but Maraenui skipper Russell Brown commented, “That’s Waka”.
“He’s a hard man and he gives you plenty of stick, but you can’t take it to heart.”
In 2009, when Leonard was coaching the Hawke’s Bay Unicorns under-20 side with sons Alan and Adrian Rowlands, he told Hawke’s Bay Today he had been discussing retirement for 10 years.
“The old body keeps telling me I’ve got to call it quits but then I see another lot of talented youngsters come along and I want to help them.”
After receiving a Sports Hawke’s Bay award for Service to Sport in 2016, Leonard said he coached because he loved being around young people, as old people were boring.
Beyond rugby league Leonard is remembered as a father of six, a grandfather and great-grandfather, and he was also a popular taxi driver around Napier.
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