2014 Round 27, Three quarter time.

13th September Birthdays.

 

   Lucas Herbert 1977, Garry Lyon 1967.

 PLAYER OF THE DAY. William Williams, born 13th September 1925.

At post war South Melbourne (1945-1951), William Williams played 124 games for 180 goals.

Recruited from local club Newport he was a speedy rover that was in a losing grand final side in his first year. He was a strong kick and dangerous around goals.  

Playing on a wing for Victoria in 1950, overall he was in 9 state games and won the clubs Best and Fairest in 1946, '47 and '50.

Source: The Encyclopaedia Of AFL Footballers.

THE KING OF ESSENDON.

Richard ‘Dick’ Reynolds was certainly a much loved son of the Essendon football club, why else would they call him ‘King Richard’.  When he retired in 1951 he had played a then league record of 320 senior games and had kicked 442 goals in a career starting in 1933.

A highly skilled rover, he was the driving force in the team for many years as is seen from his achievements.

Along the way he picked up 3 Brownlow medals (1934, ’37 and ’38) and was the club Best and Fairest 7 times.  He coached the club as either a playing or non-playing coach for 22 years and in that time they won 4 premierships.

In additions to that he played 19 games for Victoria, captaining them 4 times in 1939 and twice in 1946 and was Coach of the state team in 1959.

Source: The Encyclopaedia Of AFL Footballers.

William Thomas X 2.

East Perth had 2 players named William Thomas and both of them won a Sandover Medal.

William ‘Digger’ Thomas was actually born in Broken Hill but found his way to Western Australia where he first played football in the Gold Fields League.

After time at another couple of clubs he joined East Perth in 1918 and played 177 games for them.

During his time with Easts he was in 6 Premiership teams, won the Sandover Medal in 1923 and was in 12 state games.  In one of the matches for Western Australia against Queensland he kicked 14 goals.

William ‘Billy’ Thomas also came to East Perth via the Gold Fields League and another WAFL club, arriving in 1927.

From then until 1936 he was in 114 games for 169 goals and was Best and Fairest twice.

He also played 9 state games for 10 goals and won the Sandover in 1929.

Source: Wikipedia.

First AFL AA Team.

There had been All Australian teams announced for many years following national carnivals but 1991 was the first year the AA team was selected from clubs in the newly named AFL.

Guy McKenna from West Coast was a back pocket in the AA team and played 267 games for the Eagles from 1988 to 2000, kicking 28 goals.

He won 2 Best and Fairests at the club and was a 2 time Premiership player. In addition to this he played 4 state of origin games for Western Australia.

Anthony Daniher at full back, was with Essendon at the time where he was in 118 games for 18 goals from 1987 to 1994.

Prior to joining the Bombers he was with South Melbourne for 6 seasons (’81-’86) and played 115 games for 62 goals.

As well as this AA selection he played 4 games for New South Wales and 1 for NSW/ACT.

Nigel Smart was named as the other back pocket and it was a sign of his abilities that he earned this selection in his first year at Adelaide.

With the Crows from 1991 to 2004 he represented them on 278 occasions for 116 goals.

A member of the clubs Premiership sides of 1997 and 1998 he was AA 3 times in all.

Source: The Encyclopaedia Of AFL Footballers & AFL Record Season Guide 2013.

1897 Finals – Week 2.

The second round of finals in 1897 was played on 28^th August and both games would have been good to watch as they were tight or see sawing contests.

Essendon and Collingwood versed each other at the MCG in front of a 5000 strong crowd, with the scores at three quarter time being Essendon 4.11.35 to Collingwoods 4.3.27.

Then in the last quarter Essendon were able to shake off the shackles and well outscored their opponents winning 9.16.70 to 4.6.30.

The other game between Geelong and Melbourne was at the Brunswick Street Oval and was watched by 4000 people.

Melbourne jumped out to a good lead and by quarter time were ahead by 17 points.  Geelong fought back in the second quarter and then they played a very even third term.

As in the other game one team took the ascendancy in the last quarter with Geelong kicking 1.5 to 0.1 to see them victors on 5.16.46 to 5.7.37.

Source: Wikipedia.