Ron’s record worth a Guinness

By DION HAYMAN

It is both a coincidence and fitting Ron Hateley has been presented with a commemorative cap signifying his position as the 1188th player to represent South Adelaide.

The two eights are a worthy reminder of one incredible Sunday in 1978 when he kicked an Australian league record eight goals from a wing. It broke the previous SANFL marker of six held by West Torrens’ Aldo Floreani. Hateley’s record appears to be still standing.

“It was just one of those days,” Hateley recalled from his Millicent home. “I just kept running down the forward line and the ball kept coming to me. I was very lucky I was just in the right place at the right time.”

Hateley saw off four opponents that day, starting with long-time rival Peter ‘Milky’ Vivian.

“I played on him in the first quarter and he ran one way and South kept getting the ball and eventually I had to pick him up,” Vivian recalled. “He stitched me up in the first quarter, kicked three goals and they took me off him which was a bonus! At quarter-time they moved Mick Koch onto him and I went to the other side of the ground. Haydn Bunton was coaching in those days and he was a pretty sharp coach and it was left to Ron that when the ball was bounced, he ran forward and it took us a while to work it out.”

The identity of Hateley’s other two victims remain obscured by the clutches of time. However, Phil Graham accepts he was probably one of them. “I was the Mr Fixit for the club, so I’m pretty sure I’d have been given a shot at him,” Graham laughed.

Hateley kicked his fourth goal in the second term before another burst after half-time. “I think I kicked three in the third quarter but I’m not sure about the others,” he said.

“The strange thing was there were only three goalscorers for us. I knew I’d kicked a few but I had no idea how many until we’d finished.”

South, which began the game on bottom of the ladder, upset sixth-ranked Central to win by 21 points. Hateley went into the game celebrating his maiden selection in the SA State squad and was suddenly big news after confirmation of his record haul from a wing.

“That was a big shock. I was told it was in the Guinness Book of Records as the most in Australia.” He also earned $50 as The Advertiser Footballer of the Week – a sum worth well over $300 in today’s money.

The stats sheet reveals another extraordinary aspect of his output. The bearded redhead finished with 26 kicks, six marks and one solitary handball – a kick to handball ratio that was no accident.

“When I was named in the South Adelaide Hall of Fame, I said when Haydn Bunton first came as coach he told us, ‘there’s one thing I want you to do – there can only be two handballs and then there has to be a kick’. I said I was always the one receiving the second handball. I did have five handballs one day against Glenelg when I didn’t know what I was doing!”

That was because he was concussed. Remarkably, Hateley fired a warning shot ahead of his eight-goal salvo a fortnight prior with a five-goal haul at the Bay.

“Halfway through the first quarter, I took a mark and fell on my head and was concussed but no-one knew it,” he said. “I played the whole game and I came to about halfway through the last quarter and I said to Geoff Baynes, ‘which way are we kicking?’ When I finished, I found out I had kicked five goals and I can’t remember any of them.”

Hateley was one of SA’s best playing on Phil Kelly in the State’s horror 11-goal loss to WA and resumed hostilities with the dual Sandover Medallist the following year.

That match, Hateley said, was the highlight of his career as part of a star-studded side which topped the Sandgropers in Perth for the first time in 17 years. “The State game stands out as the best for sure. There were quite a number of players in both teams who ended up playing in the VFL after that. It was a top side, an unbelievable side.”

Hateley might have joined them but for a broken leg in the 1979 qualifying final against Port which saw him miss what remains the Panthers’ last appearance in a grand final.

Gordon Schwartz reported in The Advertiser Hateley, who collected 10 kicks in the opening term, was carried from the ground early in the second quarter after a collision near the centre with Magpies defender Tony Giles. Schwartz wrote: “Giles said after the match Hateley’s leg had crossed his. He had heard Hateley’s shinbone crack when their legs hit”.

“I saw it coming but I couldn’t get out the way. I knew straight away I was gone,” Hateley recalled. It left him to watch the same teams battle it out in the grand final from the sidelines on a wet and wild day he described as “demoralising”.

“The worst day of football there’s ever been, I reckon. Whoever won the toss was going to win it. They won the toss. Darrell Cahill kicked a couple of goals out of his backside. And I don’t think there was a goal scored down the other end all day.”

Hateley worked overtime to make it back for the opening round of the 1980 season but his VFL ship had sailed. He had lost none of his pace which he attributes to genetics – his father won a Mt Gambier Gift. And the southeast is where he returned in 1985 after 216 games, 210 goals and two night premierships with the blue and whites.

Grand final glory was achieved in 1986 as playing coach of Tantanoola, where he likely remains the club’s last surviving dual premiership player. He also played in their previous success in 1975 when South missed the SANFL finals. “I snuck down to qualify during the season. They changed the rules after that.”

Hateley still watches South when he comes to Adelaide and can’t explain why they haven’t been back to a grand final in nearly 50 years.

But he does think playing and training on Adelaide Oval for most of the 20th century didn’t help. “I always said it was fantastic there because it was so perfect – the ball would always bounce up in front of you. When we went to suburban grounds, you didn’t have that sort of bounce and getting used to that was difficult.”

SOUTH 4.3  8.7  11.16  15.21 (111)

CENTRAL  7.1  10.4  11.5  14.6 (90)

BEST – South: Hateley, Slattery, Hines, Butler, Baynes, Dry. Central: Beythien, Graham, Koch, Jonas, George.

SCORERS – South: Hateley 8.2, Fry 4.2, Linke 3.4, Dry 0.3, Bennett, Baynes 0.2, Butler, Minnis, Farrer 0.1, rushed 0.3. Central: George 6.1, Beythien 3.0, Saywell 2.1, Graham, O’Brien, Skinner 1.0, Norsworthy 0.2, Vivian, rushed 0.1.

UMPIRES – Peter Mead, John Hylton.

CROWD – 4277 at Adelaide Oval.