Micky Steele-Bodger, who has died aged 93, was one of the most powerful figures in the world of rugby for more than 60 years and the last in a line of larger-than-life characters who dominated the amateur era.

A flanker whose England career was cut short by a knee injury after winning nine caps soon after the Second World War, he went on to become a national selector for 15 years, the long-serving chairman of the Home Rugby Unions Tours Committee (which looks after the Lions), a member of the Sports Council, a trustee and President of the Rugby Football Union and chairman of the International Rugby Board.

He will, however, be chiefly remembered for two other reasons: Steele-Bodger’s XV and the Barbarians. His XV is an invitational team that plays Cambridge in a traditional fixture ahead of every Varsity match.

In 1948, two years after he captained the Light Blues, he was asked by the university rugby club to re-establish the star-studded invitation team, then called J V Greenwood’s XV, that had existed before the war, Greenwood himself having died.

Steele-Bodger stipulated two conditions for having his name attached: that he would be sole selector and that there should be a formal dinner after the match, so that the players would regard it as a special event in the rugby calendar.