Kicking a Winning Score

By PETER CORNWALL

Glenelg skipper Liam McBean kicked his way into SANFL folklore with his matchwinning seven-goal haul in the 2024 grand final thriller against Norwood. 

In an era when almost everyone reckons defence wins premierships, McBean just about won one off his own boot when he hauled in nine strong marks and booted a deadly 7.0 in the Tigers’ five-point triumph at Adelaide Oval. The Redlegs kicked away early in a see-sawing game in which Glenelg kept fighting back. Four times the Bays snatched the lead – the last time at the 19-minute-mark of the last quarter – and each time it was a McBean goal that put them in front. Talk about leading from the front.

There have been plenty of outstanding SANFL forwards who have been grand final matchwinners and they deserve to be celebrated because there’s nothing better to watch in our great game than the high-flying goalkicker.

Sturt’s attacking game was a joy under Jack Oatey in the 1960s and ’70s as the Double Blues routinely kicked impressive winning scores. So perhaps it should not be a surprise Sturt has had more century goalkickers than any other SANFL club. Five Blues stars – ‘Bo’ Morton, Ken Whelan, Rick Davies, Ian Willmott and Brant Chambers – have bagged 100 in a season. And Sturt’s goalkickers have also led the way in grand finals, with the three biggest hauls all by Blues spearheads.

Gordon ‘Grassy’ Green booted nine goals against North Adelaide in 1932, while Malcolm Greenslade kicked nine against Glenelg in 1969. And next best is Malcolm ‘Emmy’ Jones, with eight in Sturt’s drought-breaking grand final win against Port Adelaide in 1966.

Sometimes, it’s your day. No matter what. Even a late night out playing cards on the eve of the biggest game of the year couldn’t stop a full forward who was on song back in 1932. Although it’s a preparation that simply wouldn’t happen these days, Sturt’s Gordon Green became the stuff of legend after arriving at Adelaide Oval – unsurprisingly “feeling a bit flat” – having played in a poker game in a smoke-filled room until two o’clock that morning.

Green, nicknamed ‘Grassy’ for fairly obvious reasons, laughed about it seven decades later in an interview with this writer. “I asked our trainer Alf Longmore for something to pep me up and he gave me a dose of smelling salts,” Grassy said. Green was feeling a little sorry for himself when he missed his first shot at goal from 15 metres, copping some stick from the crowd, North supporters happy to tell him it just wasn’t going to be his day. They were feeling sick and sorry for themselves as if they’d had the night out on the town when his next nine shots all were goals.

Green, who died aged 95 in 2004, “showed astounding aerial ability, and kicked remarkably well” according to Rover in The Advertiser. While he was holding all the aces on this memorable day, the greatest goalkicker of them all, North’s Ken Farmer, kicked 5.2 to finish with half his side’s goals.

Green, credited in The Advertiser with 9.2, had his record equalled – or pipped, depending on how precise you want to be – by a man with a similar name from the same club when Malcolm Greenslade bagged 9.4 as the Blues kicked a grand final record 24.15 against the Bays in 1969. The VFL/AFL grand final record also is nine goals, by Collingwood’s Gordon Coventry in 1928 and Geelong’s Gary Ablett – incredibly in a losing side – in 1989.

Greenslade was a favourite for footy photographers and the picture of him soaring for a mark for Richmond in 1971 is one of the sport’s iconic pictures. His stunning leap saw him nominated for Richmond’s Mark of the Century, despite playing just two VFL games there while on National Service. “It was my first touch of the footy in the VFL,” he recalled in an interview with this writer in 2017. And he dropkicked the ball from there to Australian Football Hall of Fame Legend Royce Hart, who goaled! “It was something special.”

But Greenslade’s favourite photo has always been the one of him kissing his boot after his nine-goal grand final haul. “And John Tilbrook didn’t pass the ball to me when I had the chance to kick my 10th. He preferred to blast away from 60 metres,” ‘Greeny’ recalled with a grin. Greenslade, who also booted six goals in the wet in Sturt’s 1970 grand final win against Glenelg, kicked 613 goals in 215 games for the Blues, ironically finishing his career with the Tigers.

He said kicking goals in a dominant Sturt side in the late 1960s and ’70s was a “no-brainer” because of the expert delivery he received from the likes of Bob Shearman, Daryl Hicks and Paul Bagshaw. ‘Emmy’ Jones also benefitted from their silky skills when he kicked 8.4 of Sturt’s 16.16 – to Port’s 8.8 – in 1966.

While that kicked off five successive premierships for Sturt at Adelaide Oval, no one had more grand final success at the iconic Oval than 1964 Magarey Medallist Geof Motley. Remembered more as a powerhouse defender or centreman, he played in nine Port Adelaide premierships and showed just what a great allround footballer he was as the grand final matchwinner in 1957. Port trailed Norwood by 24 points in the second quarter before Magpies coach Fos Williams switched Dave Boyd into the centre and Motley to half-forward. He simply took the game by the scruff of the neck, booting a stunning seven goals. Port was a goal behind at the last break but Motley kicked four final-quarter goals, Keith Butler writing in The Advertiser it was “his fast, clever dashes that finally spreadeagled the Norwood defence and wrote the final chapter to an epic match”.

Norwood’s ‘Cool Alec’ Bent was a last-gasp premiership hero in 1925. He had already booted five goals in a low-scoring thriller but, in the dying moments, he stepped up with the flag on the line, the Blue and Reds trailing West Torrens by five points. The mercurial goalsneak “punted high and amid a veritable tumult the ball sailed through the goal”.

Usually a bag of goals means a win in a grand final. But another Norwood great, dual Magarey Medallist Mitch Grigg, is an exception to  the rule. He also is the only player to have won a Jack Oatey Medal from the losing side, after the Redlegs were beaten by North Adelaide by 19 points in 2018 – and when you look at his stats it’s not hard to see why. Six goals – from the midfield – and 31 disposals.

Glenelg’s tradition of key forwards standing up as grand final matchwinners continued in 2024 with McBean. The previous year it was Lachie Hosie with the Jack Oatey Medal after he booted six goals without a miss in the Bays’ 24-point win against Sturt. Before that, it was Stephen Kernahan in 1985 and Tony Hall in ’86. Kernahan was King of the Bay after ripping the game from North’s grasp after it had led by 29 points in the second quarter, hauling in a succession of strongly-contested marks and bagging 7.3. The following year the Tigers led from go-to-whoa against the Roosters, Hall flying high with six goals. North has suffered more than its share of grief at the hands of the Bays. Hosie’s Medal-winning haul came 50 years after Rex Voigt had booted seven goals and Peter Carey six in Glenelg’s epic last-gasp triumph against the Roosters in 1973.

While Hosie and McBean have won four Ken Farmer Medals for leading goalkicker between them, the man the Medal was named after shone out in the 1931 grand final, breaking the then Australian record for most goals in a season, held by the VFL Magpies’ Coventry. Farmer kicked six goals in North’s 38-point win against Sturt, taking his tally for the season to 126, topping Coventry by two. And it seemed everyone at Adelaide Oval was barracking for the North legend. “Players on both sides rushed to congratulate Farmer when he equalled the Australian record with a great snapshot goal from a long way out,” Rover wrote in The Advertiser, “but the scenes of enthusiasm among the players were unprecedented when he ran in unhindered a little later to score the record-breaking goal. Sturt players seemed more interested in Farmer’s success than in their own prospects.” It’s fair to say times have changed.

Despite a strong history of great goalkickers including centurions Farmer, Dennis Sachse, Grenville Dietrich and John Roberts, North’s biggest hauls on grand final day have been seven by a couple of livewire rovers – Barry Potts in the 1960 thriller against Norwood and Jack Oatey Medallist Darel Hart in the thrashing of West in 1991.

No full forward has impacted more grand finals than Port Adelaide’s Scott Hodges, who booted seven goals against Central District in 1996 and six against Glenelg in 1990 and ’92 and the Eagles in 1994. In the 1990 grand final he broke Rick Davies’ record of 151 goals, finishing his Magarey Medal-winning season with 153.

Just as Magpie Tim Evans was when he booted seven goals against Glenelg in 1977, Hodges was a matchwinner. The sort of player who can bring a crowd to its feet, just as McBean did in 2024. The sort who can dominate when there’s a ‘full house’ on grand final day – although not the sort ‘Grassy’ Green coveted the night before his big day out.