Very sad news that Jeff has passed away.
The word great is over used now but think he was an RL great. Kept playing up to 45. How he did that god knows because he was one 1 leg when he played for us in 1986. Albeit, still a better forward on 1 leg than most of our 80’s forwards on 2.
Was sat in the dressing room in tears when we lost to Hull KR in cup semi in 1986 as he knew Wembley dream had gone.
Great forward and think played more pro games than any other forward in history.
RIP to a proper RL player.

Yeah upset me to hear this yesterday. He only played for us for a short period of time but he was a terrific ball handling prop who did a good job for us. Kevin Rayne certainly benefitted from his offloads.

Bradford obviously had his best days and he played many a year at Batley after playing for us.

Great servant to the sport. RIP Jeff.

Used to be a nightmare for us to handle when he was at Bradford. Slightly past it, but still the ghost of a great player at Leeds.

Oh that is sad news - he was a great prop and feared too, I believe he once played in the same team as his son. Sad news indeed a real warrior has gone - RIP Jeff ,

The Jeffasaurus. A real old fashioned Prop, must have been a nightmare to play against, you just couldn't stop him getting the ball away...

Fondly remembered and missed in equal measure.

My memory may be fading but i'm pretty sure he still won GB caps whilst at Leeds.

Yeah he played in the 85 series versus the Kiwis.

think he was mid to late thirties then, I remember thinking we must be bad for props if a thirty something was getting into GB team, but I did like Jeff as a Leeds player, no nonsense about him at all.

He was 36 years and 8 months when Bamford asked him to play vs the Kiwis. Crooks was suspended and Kevin Ward had refused to play for GB since 1984 (Maurice persuaded him to come back in 86 to face the Kangaroos)

Other props to play around that time were Hobbs, Dickinson, Wane, Case, Dannatt, Fieldhouse, Goodway and Keith Rayne. Thinking back Grayshon was better than most of those at the time.

Fieldhouse and Goodway were the standouts from them. Neither were massive but were great players, Fieldhouse got man of series in one of the series and Goodway played off season down under and got rave reviews. Hugh Waddell must have been around then as well, and you can't leave out Roy Powell.

Goodway and Fieldhouse were more suited to the second row IMO. Although Frank Myler picked Goodway at prop a lot and Bamford picked Fieldhouse there this was because as you said earlier we were a bit short of front rowers - especially with Ward refusing to play. Goodway was very good but had an attitude problem and wasn't really a team man. Fieldhouse I remember was good up until he came up against the 86 Aussies but then nobody really did well against them.

The 84-86 period was before Roy's time in a GB shirt - he began to make his mark after 88.

Think in 86 quite a few GB players stood out individually but as a team we were lacking, Bamford a terrible dinosaur of a coach, plus we maybe had 8-9 world class players in the squad, the Aussies had 26 in their squad and a fair few more at home their best prop at the Time Tunks refused to tour, and had a world class coaching team, not a big mouthed Sunday league coach.