2014 Round 10, Half time.

15th May Birthdays.

 

Joshua Kitchen 1975.

Coaches Addresses.

In the modern game there always seem to be runners on the ground delivering messages from the coaches; but it wasn’t always so!

Very early in the evolution of the game there were no coaches at all and decisions were made by the Captain on the ground.

Prior to 1955, when runners were introduced, coaches couldn’t get instructions to the team at all during play and until 1964 they were only able to talk to the players before the game, at half time and three quarter time.

The exception to this, of course, was the playing coach who was on the field most of the time and could make moves from there.

Source: The Old Dark Navy Blues by Lionel Frost.
 

 

Neil Kerley – King of South Australia.

For such a fine player Donald Neil Kerley had an interesting start to his football career. He was signed by West Adelaide and played for them in 1952, then, in 1953, he went to the country to work and play, finally being enticed back to Wests in 1956.

He ended up playing 155 games for them until 1963 and kicked 87 goals. One of few players, particularly in that era, that could play in any position, he played a lot in the ruck, even though he was only 182 cm tall.

From 1964 to 1966 he was at South Adelaide for 56 games and then at Glenelg from 1967 to 1969 for 55 games and 36 goals.

He coached each of these clubs for at least some of the time he was with them and was playing coach at Glenelg and continued as coach until 1976. The other two clubs Neil coached were West Torrens and Central Districts, making it 5 clubs in all.

As part of West Adelaide’s 1961 Premiership team, he also won the clubs Best And Fairest 4 times.  He took South Adelaide from last position in 1963 to flag winners in 1964 and was coach of premiership teams at Glenelg in 1973 and West Adelaide again in 1983.

An Australian Football Hall Of Fame inductee in 1997 he played in 32 state games for South Australia.

Source: Wikipedia.

 

3 X 4 at St. Kilda.

The St. Kilda football club has had many great # 4’s and most of them have played a lot of games for the club.  Here are just 3 of those men.

Barry Breen was a 300 gamer and scored at better than a goal a game (308) in a career covering 3 decades, from 1965 to 1982.

Even though his form could be up and down at times he was obviously a good shot at goal and is possibly best remembered for kicking the behind that gave the Saints the 1966 premiership over Collingwood.

As well as being in the flag side he represented Victoria on 3 occasions.

Tony Lockett has done so much as a player that he has a whole page written about him in the Encyclopaedia of AFL players.

Though he finished his time as a player at Sydney, he was with St. Kilda from 1983 to 1994, played 183 games and kicked 898 goals.

Tony was rather a reserved person and didn’t appreciate the media spot light which is hard to do when you are one of the best full forwards of all time!

He won the Coleman Medal twice while with the Saint’s and also earned himself a Brownlow in 1987 (the first forward to do so).

Andrew Thompson joined the club in 1997 and wore the famous #4 from 1999 to 2007.  He played 221 games and scored 93 goals.

Having originally tried out with the Saints over Summer ’93-’94 he spent time on their and Footscray’s supplementary lists and it didn’t really look like he would make it into first grade football.

But looks can be deceiving, and when he got his chance he really shone, proving to be a great tagger with good tackling and smothering skills.

Source: AFL tables & The Encyclopaedia of  AFL Footballers.

Bond – Troy & Shane.

The older of the two brothers, Troy was with Carlton from 1994 to 1995 and played 36 games for 26 goals.

When he was not selected to play in the 1995 Premiership side he left on Grand Final eve to return to Adelaide without telling anyone.

Traded to Adelaide in 1996 he quickly became a permanent part of the team and was one of the best in the finals of 1997 where he was able to do what he had missed out on at Carlton; wear a Premiership Medal.

 

Shane is two years younger than Troy but started his football journey at the same time.

In 1994 he was signed to West Coast and played 34 games for them up to 1996 and kicked 20 goals. Like his older brother he was also able to claim a Premiership Medal, in 1994.

Moving to Port Adelaide in 1997 he played every game that year but injuries saw him sidelined for a number of matches from then on and he finally hung up the boots at the end of 2000 after 57 games and 11 goals.

He played 1 State Of Origin game for South Australia in 1997.

Source: The Encyclopaedia of  AFL Footballers.