Pretty good side – it is sad, particularly, for the players whom played little or no football because of injury.
Backs Wilkonson Fussell Court
HB Tucker Wallwork Bengough
C Perry Mort Young – played one game on return.
HF Schuktz Langdon Gooch
F Smith Fathers Munro
R Madut Phelan Mick Lee
Some of those guys had long careers AR (Phelan, Langdon, Wilkinson, Smith, Lee all would have played close to 150 games) Court went to Claremont from memory.
Laurie Keene was one who had his very good footy career finished early by an Achilles problem.
In more recent times Ben Randall was another.
Was Brad Lohoar’s career ended by injury or other?
very true ‘bease’. but in the case of Wikinson, he had just been made captain; Smith played on one leg; not sure Mort was even fit to play in the 1985 grand final; but, I am not complaining, just musing; none of them were quite the same players when they came back.
I think Brad got pushed out by injury and the presence of players, such as,
Gerry Cotter
Ray Reeves – I could have put him in the team, as he lost at least a season himself
Paul Wallwork
Greg Wilkinson
Clint Brown movinginto the backline
Brian Taylor missed a fair bit of footy early in his career too with a knee or groin problem if memory serves me right AR?!
BH: your right-- from memory Brian was a bit similar to Mick Lee, injury prone early on, but after that a weekly starter; as you said ‘bease’ a lot of football for Subi played between those two.
Warren Dean had his career ended early by a chronic knee too AR.
BH: I saw Dean’s last game for Subi – he was brave going out on the field.
Can you do a side for SD, please?
Just for you as requested AR and following your lead of players who missed large chunks of games or had their career ruined or ended through injury in my time following at SD-
BA: Ware, Mullooly, Grasso
HB: Hetherington, Cransberg, Solin (1981 Finals)
CE: P.Narkle, M.Smith, Robinson
HF: D. Holmes, Sartori, M.Sidebottom
FO: Blackaby, Hutton, A.Sidebottom
RU: Boucher, Callaghan, Shine
IN: Williams, K.Ugle, T.Menegola, Broadbridge, Renfree, N.Blakely, Blight, Ellard, Banfield, Melrose, M.Richardson (1981 Finals)
BH: thanks very much mate – what it shows is how well SD did to win all those flags back in the Todd era. Saartori and Smith stick out for me in terms of highlighting the talent which was unavailable. Subi has been lucky we have never really lost key players in big numbers; maybe Della and Wheeler in recent years.
Not sure I agree on the injury front AR as this year alone we had the following out at various stages for extended periods…
Newton
Halligan
Wheeler
Phelan
Stevenson
Hancock
Corey Adamson
Joyce
Waters
but I guess it gave local kids Borchet, TE-B, McKenzie Lawrence, Jacob Miller, Ethan Burnett some league exposure.
Couple that come to mind are
1 Shane McGowan. Played a couple of games in 1993 out of colts as a 17 yo, then soon after had a serious car accident and was left injured and never played again.
BC: don’t forget I nammed Wheeler, Phelan and Della; the only one I missed was Stevenson; the others you mentioned we did not really miss because of our depth.
BC and Jim: How much of a loss was Gary Farthers?
AR…all the ones I named would be in our best 22 on any given day so it must have had an impact in some way but agree, the affect was minimized by our depth.
AR, Gary Fathers was strong marking full forward with the unusual kicking style that affected his accuracy in front of goals. In His third year of league footy (1977) he kicked 84 goals in 21 games in a side that only won 7 games all year. A knee injury then ended his career. I believe he was a huge loss as he was only getting better at that stage. In 1977 he also kicked over 50 points so he got plenty of the ball. If we could have had Ocker Robertson work with him on his kicking he could have further improved too. This was also a time where we were going into probably the worst period in the clubs modern history so who knows where Gary Fathers would have ended up? Alot of our players left the club over this period with the situation of our finances at the time. As ive said before growing up thru this period makes the current position so much sweeter!
jim: thanks mate, I have heard people speak highly of him so he was a sad loss. He was the link between Robertson and Clinton Brown at full-forward which we lacked. The other thing that side lacked, of course, was a really class ruckman, as you know. Hence the recruitment of Jeff Murray and Vic Melville a bit later on by the club.
What about David Rhodes, jim, came over from Fitzroy as a Victorian representative, I believe? Any good?
How about Bevan Warner? He was a huge talent and I’m pretty sure was struck down with injury?
Singha was Wayne Dawson in the same category as Warner? I vaguely remember they both showed promise as young blokes in the early 80s but then either got injured or lost their place by the 85/86 era and ended up at EP!
Remember Tony Hall had a purple patch at FF not long after Fathers. Fast leading but very slightly built FF
Rhodes was handy but I think lacked a bit of pace. My memory is a bit faded from those days but I can remember him being blonde and a bit slow but pretty good skills. Didn’t Munro miss a bit with ankle problems? Very strong hands but spent too much time on the ground after diving for grabs for my liking. Another ff with a strange kicking style. I didn’t really rate Dawson Beas. Anyone remember Billy Dunne? He was handy but also troubled by injury. The biggest disappointment for me was Young after returning from the vfl. He was a star but broke down fast every time he attempted to play. Mort was going to be another Buckenara before he did his knee. Did it at a pretty young age too. We never seemed to have much luck in those days
McGowen fell of the back of a ute up north in the off season, paraplegic I think