Debut: Vs York (H) 4th February 1956

Leeds Appearances: 296

Leeds Tries: 63

Leeds Honours: Championship (Winner: 1961), Challenge Cup (Winner: 1957), League Leaders' Shield (Winner: 1960-61), Yorkshire Cup (Winner: 1958-59), Yorkshire League (Winner: 1956-57, 1960-61)

Born in Castleford in 1932, and put through his paces at St Joseph's School, Don went on to play at centre and loose-forward with Fryston Colliery and Kippax, before his storming second-row displays with Newmarket attracted the attention of the Wakefield committee, for whom he signed professional forms shortly before Christmas 1949.

The 'A' team apprenticeship was brief, his promotion an immediate success, with senior status assured from the moment he burst on the scene on March 1st in a Challenge Cup 2nd Round replay at Crown Flatt. He breezed through 1951-52 with a try and a winner's medal in the Yorkshire Cup Final against Keighley, named as reserve for Great Britain versus New Zealand, made his England debut in Marseilles (followed by a first appearance in Yorkshire's colours) and was top of Trinity's try-scoring list with 21.

He didn't exactly let his 21st birthday go unnoticed either, collecting a medal as a member of Yorkshire's championship-winning team, before responding to Dave Valentine's inspired leadership with four supercharged blockbusting performances as the Great Britain no-hopers defied the odds in France in the 1954 World Cup.

Appointed Wakefield captain at the beginning of the 1955-56 season, but out of action for several weeks with a cracked fibula, sustained in the first Test against New Zealand at Swinton's Station Road, Don finally applied for a transfer at the turn of the year and needed no persuading to sign on the dotted line for Leeds.

Quick to prove himself at The Boulevard of all places in the 1st Round of the 1957 Challenge Cup, the Loiners went through to a famous victory by 9 points to 4. In October 1956 when 25,000 packed into Headingley to take on Ken Kearney's touring Australians, Don's contribution was nothing short of herculean, as he surged on to Harry Street's shrewd pass in the closing minutes, to send Bernard Prior cantering over in triumph.

Selected shortly afterwards, along with Jeff Stevenson, for the first two Tests at Central Park and Odsal, by the time he returned from international duty, Leeds had won four games on the trot, with fourteen more to follow on a bandwagon that was to keep on rolling down the Wembley highway. Despite suffering a cracked scaphoid, Don made sure he was available for the Cup Final that year, wearing protective strapping and walking tall as he pulled out all the stops. Pouncing on a wayward second-half pass from Barrow's Jack Grundy, Robinson was over to put the Loiners seven points clear with his 16th try of the season. Then, in the very last minute, with the margin down to a mere two points, he was there again, plunging bravely for a touchdown that would have put the game beyond redemption, only to be penalised for a double movement. Wembley, the Challenge Cup and the Yorkshire Championship Cup; all in his first full season at Headingley.

Honours and awards were increasingly hard to come by during his seven remaining years at Headingley. Consistently overlooked by the international selectors, apart from two Tests against Australia and one against France during 1959-60, Robinson ploughed on regardless. Loyal service did not go unrewarded: in October 1958, a medal to mark the Yorkshire Cup Final victory over his former club; and then, in May 1961, by which time he had moved up permanently to the front row, there came that 25-10 drubbing for Warrington and the Championship medal for which generation after generation of Leeds players had striven in vain.

Making his farewell appearance at Headingley on 28th March 1964, and rounding off his career with a spell as player-coach with Doncaster, Don also put in an eight-month stint as coach at Bramley, from October 1978 to May 1979.

In 2021, he was inducted into the Leeds Rugby Hall of Fame.