Greg’s goal barrage

By DION HAYMAN

The Tigers never knew what hit them.

They should have because Greg Edwards was a repeat offender. The 20-year-old Central District forward booted 10.2 in a losing side against Glenelg at Elizabeth in the third round of the 1982 season, announcing his arrival as a mighty forward threat.

Edwards, now the club’s CEO, was in his third season of senior football, having already scored 58 goals in 20 league games. Equally adept with the ball in the air or on the ground, he was one of the mainstays of the Dogs’ rollercoaster season.

By the 20th series, they were two wins and percentage outside the five with just three games to play but they travelled to the Bay on the back of four straight wins. Glenelg had battled all year to grasp the double-chance and finally took third the week before with a breathtaking last-kick win against Norwood at headquarters.

No-one could have predicted what unfolded that afternoon at Glenelg. The Bays suffered their biggest home defeat since their maiden 1921 season while the Bulldogs booted the highest score by a visiting team at Glenelg.

Edwards scored 11.2 and finished the day with 92 for the season, surpassing Gary Jones’ club record of 91. The Bulldog onslaught was withering and relentless after a pre-match build-up club director Bob Zerella described as “the best I have seen”.

“I remember Daryl (Hicks) and the coaches pounding it into us that we basically had to win every game to make the five,” Edwards recalled. “We got off to a flyer and we thought, this is actually going according to plan.”

The Tigers scored the first goal of the game but were quickly subdued by the white-hot Bulldogs, who slammed on the next nine, including four in the final four minutes of the quarter.

“The ball bounced our way, we kicked some stupid goals from the boundary and over our heads, it was just one of those days,” Edwards said. One of those ‘stupid’ goals was Edwards’ fourth.

The Bulldogs knocked the ball towards goal and sensing the danger, Edwards’ first opponent, Keith Kuhlmann, tracked back towards the goalsquare. The big defender led his man by about a metre when the ball suddenly took a vicious leg-break, bouncing straight into Edwards’ hands on the goal-line.

By the time he scored his third for the term and fifth for the half, Glenelg coach John Halbert had shuffled Graham Cornes back onto the lively goalsneak. But Edwards wasn’t Halbert’s only problem.

He formed a twin threat with centre half-forward Michael Wright, who had scored Central’s first two goals of the match. Wright booted his fourth to open the second half, triggering another onslaught of 9.5 to 0.4 that stretched the Dogs’ half-time lead of 66 points to 118.

Cornes returned to mark Wright as John Seebohm and Chris Duthy tried in vain to silence Edwards. Glenelg finally rallied with six goals in 13 minutes of the final term but failed to cut the final margin to two figures.

Only Chris McDermott and Stephen Kernahan, who took 13 marks rucking in the absence of injured Peter Carey, were named ‘best’ for the Bays. Conversely, the Bulldogs had matchwinners everywhere.

Nineteen-year-old John Platten ran riot to lower the colours of eventual Magarey Medallist Tony McGuinness.

Peter Krieg boomed the ball out of the centre at every opportunity and was Hicks’ choice as best player, despite spending a week in the snow before the game.

Doing his best to remain measured in a TV interview, Hicks declared: “This is the highest point perhaps in the history of the club, certainly against Glenelg. There’s a famous quote in Rocky III about the eye of the tiger and we’ve got the tiger’s eye today.”

The 30.18 (198) to 13.11 (89) result went some way towards healing the scars from the Bulldogs’ date with disaster at the same ground in 1975 when Glenelg scored a record 49 goals. Central won in 1976 at the Bay by 38 points in Sonny Morey’s 200th game but this outcome was much more emphatic.

“It might have been a little bit of payback for the 49-goal effort,” Edwards said. “I think individually it was probably spoken about among a few beers. We had a couple of players still playing. It would have got some banter.”

The Bulldogs eventually claimed fifth place in the final round with their seventh straight win, setting up an elimination final rematch with none other than Glenelg. But despite another three goals from Edwards, the Tigers won by 50 points, Wright succumbing to a knee injury early in the second term.

Edwards finished with 104 goals that season and remains the only Bulldog to have kicked the ton. Come 1983, the sky appeared the limit. He had been invited to visit North Melbourne and Fitzroy with a view to joining one at the end of that season.

And he scored four goals for The Advertiser Team of the Year, a pseudo State team, in a 15-point win against 1982 premier Norwood.

But his highly promising career ended prematurely after a freak injury in a practice game at Elizabeth, also against Glenelg. He lost the sight in his left eye after a mistimed spoiling attempt, while backing into an oncoming pack.

“Someone went to punch the ball and hit me straight in the eye. I landed flat on my back as you do when you get your legs taken out from under you and I swallowed my mouthguard,” Edwards said.

But it wasn’t until a doctor noticed his pupil wasn’t dilating the alarm was raised. “If I had my time again, I would have stopped and crumbed the pack rather than be some hero. I just don’t see any point running back trying to see where the ball is when you’ve got people running the other way, it doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never been a fan of it ever since that day.”

Edwards acted as runner for the Bulldogs’ reserves in 1984 and attempted a comeback in 1985 but lasted just one game.

“There was a night game at Footy Park and Cowboy (coach Kevin Neale) came to me and said he was considering playing me in the league. I said to him, ‘don’t play me this week, I don’t want to play under lights, not first up because it was more difficult for me than everyone else’.

”But he ended up picking me. I think we might have lost and it was a hard game for me to play. I remember being pretty disappointed. Then Cowboy, Alan Stewart and Kris Grant got me in for a meeting and said they didn’t want to play me any more. I said I wanted to play and the doctor said it’s up to me but they said, ‘we’re not going to pick you’.

”It was a bitter pill to swallow. They were just looking after my health and, while I might not have fully appreciated it at the time, I do now.”

CENTRAL  9.5   14.11  23.16  30.18  (198)

GLENELG  1.3    5.4    5.8   13.11    (89)

BEST – Central: Krieg, Edwards, Platten, Wright, Hurn, Thomas, Moore, Trigg.

Glenelg: Kernahan, McDermott.

SCORERS – Central: Edwards 11.2, Wright 6.4, Robertson 3.0, Ruciack 2.2, Mobbs 2.1, Vivian 2.0, Trigg, Norsworthy 1.2, Platten 1.1, Wilson 1.0, van Dommele 0.2, rushed 0.3.

Glenelg: McGuinness 3.1, Symonds 2.2, Duth, Seebohm 2.0, Hercock 1.1, Weston, Cornes, Hewett 1.0, Kernahan, McDermott, Paynter, Lunnis 0.1, rushed 0.2.

UMPIRES – Rick Kinnear, Bob Scholefield

CROWD – 9495 at Glenelg Oval.