Australian Football

Barry Lawrence is widely remembered as one of the best VFL defenders of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but he actually began his career with Longford as a forward, and was selected as centre half forward in that club's official 'Team of the Century'. A member of Tasmania's carnival squad in 1966, Lawrence won the Hec Smith Memorial Medal the same year before leaving for the mainland, and an eight-season career with St Kilda, two years later.

Late in his first season with the Saints, after failing to perform at the expected standard as a forward, coach Allan Jeans tried him on the backlines, and a star was born. Lawrence was later again used in an attacking role - this time with success - on intermittent occasions.

In the 1971 VFL Grand Final Barry Lawrence put in one of the performances for which he is best remembered when, faced by fellow Taswegian Peter Hudson of Hawthorn, he barely made a mistake all day in restricting the champion goalsneak to just three goals when four would have seen him break Bob Pratt's all time record of 150 VFL goals in a season. Sadly for Lawrence, however, Hudson had the last laugh as the Hawks won the premiership.

After 128 games with St Kilda Lawrence returned to Longford in 1977 and continued to perform to a high standard. In 1978 and 1979 he captained Tasmania, taking his total number of Tasmanian interstate appearances to 14 in the process. He had also earlier represented the VFL in representative football. Sadly, however, when he finally retired from football it was without a senior premiership to his name.

In 2004, Barry Lawrence was named on a half back flank in the official Tasmanian 'Team of the Century'. He was inducted into the Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame in 2005.

Author - John Devaney