Some players stand out in our memories and many of us, myself included, have lionised them over the years, making them seem grander than perhaps they really were.
The AFL Hall of Fame is littered with players who excelled at the highest level and achieved enormous feats of brilliance on the field, but not all players we’ll cover here will have been announced as part of the game’s elite.
Here at The Mongrel Punt, we have always endeavoured to look a little beyond the obvious, flitter between household names and some that maybe… just maybe have slipped your mind over the years.
In this series profiling the heroes of the game, we look at some of the players who were vital to their teams’ success in different capacities.
And believe me – there are plenty of them. And we ask – just how good were they?
You can find the previous four instalments of this series HERE.
BERNIE QUINLAN
Like another bloke, below, I only caught the very back end of Quinlan’s career, but I can remember standing in the outer with my old man at both the Junction Oval, and Arden Street, and whenever Bernie took a mark within 60 metres of goal, you could almost write it down that he was going to make the distance and score.
Such was the power in the kicking of the man dubbed ‘superboot’. People often embellish the feats of years gone by, and if I am doing the same, it is not intentional, but without a fifty-metre arc, Quinlan always seemed to be taking shots from places where just about every other player was looking to make a short pass.
In an 18-year career, Quinlan spent equal time at both Footscray and Fitzroy, but it is arguable that his greatest fame came as a Lion. It was there that he moved from centre-half-forward to full forward, and became one of the few men to win the Brownlow Medal, as well as the Coleman.
In a star-studded team (Garry Wilson, Mick Conlan, Paul Roos, Gary Pert), he kicked 100 twice in a row in 1983 and 1984, as the Lions were right in the finals mix, before he “fell away” to register only 84 in 1985.
Quinlan retired after the 1986 season, with the Roys falling to Hawthorn in the Preliminary Final. Really, it was the beginning of the end for the Fitzroy Football Club, who would not play finals again, and were gone ten years later.
SAM NEWMAN
Like Quinlan, I only got to see the latter stages of Newman’s career. He was stationed in the forward line in 1980, against North Melbourne at Arden Street…
… and for a bloke on his last legs, he completely owned the game.
With Rod Blake now playing ruck, Newman patrolled the forward line with an attitude that told everyone he was going to have a day out. He kicked five, took ten marks, and had 24 disposals, as he and his Cats handled the Kangaroos on their home deck, and such was his dominant display, the North fans started to get a little annoyed with him as the afternoon wore on.
You see, at this point in the game, everyone on every team wore black boots. There was only one exception.
And that man was Newman. He wore white ones, and it drew negative attention to him like male changerooms draw the attention of Joe Ganino.
The abuse Newman copped that day was unlike anything I’d ever heard – to that point in life, anyway. It was a constant tirade of hatred and homophobic comments hurled at the Geelong champion as he went about a best on ground performance. It was almost like he was rubbing it in the faces of the North crowd, and the more he got the footy, the angrier they got.
In a game boasting names like Malcolm Blight, Gary Dempsey, Ross Glendinning, Mick Turner, and the Nankervis Brothers, that Newman was able to play at this level at 34 years of age, speaks volumes about how good he was.
Irrespective of what you think of him as a person, as a footballer, he was something else, and I am glad I saw it first-hand, even as a kid, to have that perspective.
JAMES HIRD
I don’t know what it was about Hird – to me, he just looked… ordinary. I mean, there was not one aspect of his game that stood out above the others around him.
He wasn’t bigger, stronger, faster, or more agile. His skills were good, but there were others that were better. It took me a while to figure out that he was just a more cerebral player than those he played with and against. He was like someone who saw the game unfold a little bit faster than everyone else out there and was able to react quicker, as a result.
This was evidenced by his incredible sequence to win the game against West Coast back in 2004. Words don’t do Hird justice, here. Without him, the Eagles win that game.
My appreciation for Hird always escalated when I watched him play in the wet. He applied sense to the way he approached the footy in those conditions. He was required to jump for marks, but wouldn’t try to clunk the marks. No, instead, Hird would use two flat palms to take the pace off the footy and prevent it from slipping out the back. He’d guide the footy down in front of his body, and take it on the second bite. To this day, I don’t see anywhere enough players adopt this approach.
When you factor in his ability to rise to the occasion in big moments, you can see why he is so beloved by many who support the Bombers. He was the golden-haired boy, and though there are more greys in the mix these days, memories of his heroics still litter the minds of the Bomber faithful, despite what transpired during his tenure as coach.
GUY MCKENNA
McKenna joined the West Coast Eagles a year after they debuted in the then-VFL, and went on to experience the early glory years of the league’s biggest club.
I am such a huge fan of the way McKenna played the game. Always calm under pressure, always composed, and was a complete ironman when it came to his durability, at one point playing 20+ games in ten of 11 seasons, despite copping some big knocks along the way.
Playing a period where intercepts and rebound 50s weren’t counted, players like McKenna, whilst rewarded with things like AA selections, were not celebrated as much as the modern half-backs. Still, those who knew footy were well aware of how good he was.
McKenna always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. And whilst he never averaged over 20 disposals per game, every one of his touches seemed to hurt the opposition.
West Coast were blessed in the early and mid 90s. Having McKenna, Glen Jakovich, John Worsfold, and Ashleiy McIntosh down back gave them the backbone that was the envy of all other clubs. And if you believe the old adage that defence wins flags, then look no further than the influence of those four blokes in the 1992/94 flags.
In terms of all-time great half-back flankers, I’d have McKenna right up there with the best. He’d beat his man, win his own footy, and carve teams up on the rebound. Actually, it might be time I went back and had a look at one of his best games and applied modern stats to it. I reckon it’d open a few eyes.
KEN HUNTER
I was sitting here wondering who I could compare Hunter to, so that a modern football supporter would nod and understand the way he played his football… but I can’t.
If I go back a bit, there are elements of Glenn Archer and Mark Harvey in his game, but he had more strings to his bow than those blokes. Archer and Harvey were brilliant defenders, but Hunter could do that, then float forward and have games where he snagged a bag of goals.
Nine times, he kicked five or more goals in a game, as he filled a hole for the Blues through the last of their true glory years.
However, whilst I loved seeing him forward, it was his work across half-back that was the true standout. This bloke was fearless, and whilst he has suffered as a result of his indisputable courage (Hunter has already stated he is donating his brain to science to help further study of CTE), he continually put his body on the line for the Navy Blue.
Hunter won the mark of the year award in 1982 – a typical Hunter-esque mark, running with the flight of the ball to take a one-grab ripper, but the 1982 Grand Final saw him knocked out in the first ten minutes. Amazingly, Hunter was back on the field by the end of the first quarter, in an act that would now be considered crazy, but at the time was testament to his courage.
Even if he can’t remember much about it.
The Blues beat the Tigers in 1982, after losing to them by ten goals earlier in the Second Semi-Final. Ironically, Richmond were one of the teams that turned their nose up at the young West Australian prospect years earlier, claiming “we don’t chase half-back flankers”.
I reckon there were points when they played Carlton, they wish they’d reconsidered.
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