Australian Football

Glen Jakovich commenced his senior league career with South Fremantle, playing in that club's losing Grand Final team of 1989 against Claremont when just 16 years of age. However, he is best remembered for his outstanding, 14-season, 276-game AFL career with West Coast.

An imposing physical specimen at 193 cm and 100 kg Jakovich was, almost beyond question, one of the greatest centre half backs of all time. Boasting all the assets of the top line defender - strength, mobility, pace, aerial prowess, and an unflappable disposition - Jakovich repeatedly rode roughshod over even the most talented of opponents. His clashes with Wayne Carey, for example, were the stuff of legend, and common consensus has it that, overall, Jakovich had the better of them.

Joint club best and fairest in 1993, Jakovich won the award in his own right on three further occasions. He was at the peak of his game during the mid-1990s, making the AFL All Australian team in 1994 and 1995, before suffering a serious knee injury in 1996 which forced him to adapt his game to cope with the inevitable reduction in mobility and pace which ensued. He did this superbly, becoming one of the game's acknowledged masters at reading the play and maneuvering himself purposefully to the fall of the ball.

A member of West Coast premiership teams in 1992 and 1994 Jakovich was still playing excellent football towards the end of his career when he was a role model for a new generation of Eagles footballers.

Author - John Devaney