Australian Football

A truly gifted, two-sided footballer who played with great verve, invention and skill, Mark Coombe suffered the misfortune of having his career peremptorily derailed by a shoulder injury while he was still just 24 years of age. Nevertheless, he achieved enough in his eight-season, 119 game league career to earn inclusion, on the wing, in South Adelaide’s official ‘Greatest Team’.¹

It was on a wing that Mark Coombe, having risen through the ranks, commenced his senior career at South Adelaide in 1968. So noteworthy were his performances in that debut season that he was widely considered to be the SANFL’s recruit of the year - no mean achievement when you consider that 1968 also introduced the likes of Russell Ebert, Ian Verrier, Robin Mulholland, Malcolm Blight and Mike Poulter to the South Australian football public. Coombe was runner-up to Peter Darley in that year’s Knuckey Cup, South’s best and fairest trophy, and the following season he went one better to become, at just 18, one of the award’s youngest ever recipients. His good form continued over the next three years, culminating in selection in South Australia’s 1972 Perth carnival team.

South Adelaide was a struggling team for most of Mark Coombe’s playing career, and did not manage to qualify for the finals even once. Ironically, following his enforced retirement the club entered a mini-halcyon phase under the innovative and energetic coaching of Haydn Bunton junior.

Author - John Devaney