Epic duels between WA and Victoria
Some of the most vivid chapters in the history of Australian rules football are recalled by the meeting at Perth Oval today of the champion footballers of Western Australia and Victoria. These two States have contested their matches with a ruggedness that sometimes amounted to the courage of utter recklessness. Through the turmoil of all their battles they have maintained a sense of sportsmanship in accord with the best traditions of the game.
South Australia and Victoria were time-honored rivals long before Western Australia entered the interstate field. The matches between those two States trace back to approximately 20 years after the late H. C. A. Harrison, the "Father of the Game," and a group of equally enthusiastic friends decided upon a breakaway from existing rules and evolved a code that proved to be more in keeping with the characteristics of the Australian people.
The rapid, expansion of the game need not be recounted here, beyond a reference to the fact that its sturdy and rapid growth in Victoria quickly infected the other States—South and Western Australia most prominent among them. Proportionately to population Western Australia has shown an appreciation for the code that is not excelled in any part of the Commonwealth.
First venture
With Victoria and South Australia already keen rivals of many years standing, Western Australia entered the interstate field in 1904. Carnival championships which drew the cream of talent from all States, and originally from New Zealand as well, were not inaugurated until four years later, so that the 1904 venture was more or less of an unofficial nature.
The team included such celebrated players of the period as Teddy Rowell, who had already been famous with the Collingwood Club; Harry Sharpe, for so long a stalwart of East Fremantle; Duff Kelly, Albert Franks, Charlie Tyson, "Bundy" McNamara, Billy Goddard, Bill Plunkett, Scotty Doig, Dick Sweetman, and—to make the link with that far-distant period still more vital in a present-day sense—Frank Jeffery, who is a member of the league selection committee that chose the side to meet Victoria today. Victoria registered in that match the first of many victories they were destined to record at Western Australia's expense.
To the present generation this recital of early events in the history of Western Australia's interstate experiences may not convey much of significance, but there are veterans today who remember them as vividly as the thrilling episodes of interstate football in the post-war period.
The 1904 tour was a complete success and Western Australia was animated with no sense of inferiority in sending a team to Melbourne to participate in the first carnival held at Melbourne in 1908. It was no mean performance to finish runner-up to Victoria.
It was in that series that New Zealand was represented for the first and only time. That this State's side should have done so well is not surprising, for it contained champions of such renown as Phil Matson— his first championship series— Alex Robinson, the Tysons, Charlie Doig, "Poet" Smith, McNamara, "Nipper" Truscott, Billy Orr, Bill Trewhella and Sam Gravenall, while Jimmy Everitt, who is still a staunch follower of West Perth, was the vice-captain.
Half of the members of the early Western Australian teams were recruited from the goldfields, then quite as flourishing a stronghold of the game as was the coast. The constitution was the same for subsequent carnivals.
Among new men to wear the State colors in 1911, the third occasion of a meeting with Victoria, were "Bonner" Hebbard, Ernie Riley, Billie Craig, Claude Waugh, Archie Strang, Jim Toohey, Jerry Balme, Tom Puddey, Charlie Doig and Barnes. Hugh Gavin led the team. Victoria beat Western Australia by 10.15 to 8.9.
In 1914 another crop of high-class exponents was ready to maintain the already solid traditions that Western Australia had established. The matches were played at Sydney and that with Victoria resulted in a 14 points defeat for Western Australia, who finished third. Among players to wear the green and gold that year, and whose names have not already been mentioned in this review, were Hubba Limb, Ernie Sellars, Bert Tapping, Snowy Youlden, Digger Thomas, Snowy Mclntosh (he played for Victoria in 1924), Tom Cain, Hedley Tompkins, George Oakley, Billy Mose, Paddy Hebbard, Tom Sullivan, and Slattery.
It is from the 1921 period that the present followers of the game trace their most vivid recollections of the stirring events of interstate rivalry. That year Western Australia won its first carnival. It has never succeeded in repeating the feat, but has been extremely close to it on at least two occasions.
Winner at last
It is a conviction of the majority of sound judges that Western Australia has never fielded a side comparable with the 1921 combination. And they cannot be far out in their opinion, for no Western Australian team presented a better balance or had its talents so uniformly distributed through the various lines as this had. Few who witnessed the epic duels for carnival supremacy that year do not recall the thrilling manner of the team's success, and the feats of the players who made it possible.
The material available enabled us to put 18 champions into the field. A run through their names will afford ample justification for that statement They were: Arthur Green,Snow Hewby, Paddy Hebbard, W. Heindrichs, Fred Ion, Tom Outridge, "Abo" Cinoris, Bonnie Campbell, Digger Thomas, Harold Boyd, Bill Adams, Norman Ford, Wally Gunnyon, Fred Wimbridge, Cyril Hoft, Ray Mudie, Ike Allen, Barney Sheedy, Nashy Brentnall, Nipper Truscott (captain), Wally Steele, and Clem Bahen. Jack Leckie was the coach of this side.
The weaker States found it impossible to be represented in the 1921 series and the championship issue resolved itself into a tussle between Victoria, South and Western Australia. The crowning point of the sterling game with Victoria was the moment of uncertainty in the closing minutes when the Collingwood goalgetter, Dick Lee, rather than try for the goal that might have won the game for his side, and with it the championship, decided to pass the ball. The Western Australian backs intercepted the pass, worked clear of the danger zone in the nick of time and won the game by the margin of 5 points.
A few days afterwards Western Australia figured in an equally stirring match with South Australia, when good kicking gave them an early advantage, and in spite of the heroic deeds of Dan Moriarty and other brilliant "Croweaters," they ran out handsome victors. In that game 11 goals were placed to Western Australia's credit before a goal was scored by South Australia, a performance not duplicated, strangely enough, until the South Australians came to Perth last year. This brilliant performance not merely set the seal on the fame of Western Australia's players, but from that stage Western Australia was accepted as Victoria's most powerful rival and that distinction has remained with us to this day.
Fierce game
The matches at the Hobart carnival in 1924 cemented the footing we had gained. Although Victoria gained their revenge it was only after a bitter struggle and the deciding game goes on record as the most fiercely contested in the history of interstate football. It was a withering ordeal for the players of both sides, and it was realised that the team which travelled to Hobart from this State on that occasion put up an equally magnificent display. They pushed an all-powerful Victorian side to a thrilling finish. If ever a match, so thrilling is played again, those who witness it will be able to count it a privilege. No better example of the fighting powers and determination of the players of these two States, or of any others, is within the history of the game.
In that match Paddy Hebbard, who has been special football writer to The Daily News in recent seasons, was skipper of the Western Australian team. Among those with him were Tom Outridge, probably the greatest follower this State has had, and a dogged and courageous ruck shepherd of abnormal physical proportions in "Fat" McDiarmid. His brother, Norman, stripped today against the Victorians, thus taking the first rung of the interstate ladder which his elder brother mounted with such rapidity and skill. Also in the side was George "Staunch" Owens, now a league umpire, and generally accepted as the finest all-rounder the game in this State has produced.
Jim Craig, now a member of the training staff of the West Perth team; Jim Gosnell, his club-mate for so many years at half-back, and now coach of the Claremont association team, were members. These and other bulldog defenders like Arthur Green, who coached Subiaco until this year and who has a relative in that side today in Ray Mudie, the fair-haired East Fremantle half-back; Wally Fletcher, a dour back pocket player; and Barry Sherlock, probably as good a goalkeeper as has ever worn the State colors, provided the stock of a wonderful defence division. Harold Boyd was there also, but an injury handicapped him.
League coaches
We had also the services of that, peerless roving combination, Larry Duffy and Johnny Leonard, with Barney Sheedy thrown in. Duffy has long since gone out of the game, but Leonard today is coach of West Perth and Sheedy fills a similar role with East Fremantle. Yet another present-day league coach who experienced a gruelling in that game is Jerry Dolan.
For the centre line against Victoria on that occasion we placed our trust in the former Adelaide champion Snowy Hamilton, Digger Thomas and George Scaddan. Scaddan excelled himself that day. Digger Thomas, although well into the forties, remains in active training today, although not with any league ambitions. He has a son with the East Perth side. Hamilton has long since returned to Adelaide. He will always be remembered for his great display for South Australia against Western Australia in the 1921 carnival, for his successful leadership of Subiaco to the premiership in 1924, and for feats of finesse of which a parallel cannot be found.
This assuredly was a team of champiouns, for references already made do not exhaust the list of brilliant exponents that it contained. There was Nipper Truscott, for example, the present coach of Victoria Park, who set up an Australian record for numbers of appearances in carnivals. He played in all five from 1908 until 1924. Another member of the team was Bonnie Campbell, in recent years coach of the successful East Perth association side.
Captured from South Fremantle by East Perth, Campbell studded his football career with many remarkable achievements. Although other goal sneaks—notably George Doig—have made his seasonal aggregates seem poor by comparison, Campbell retains a foremost place in the ranks of Western Australia's greatest centre-forwards. In the 1924 carnival series Campbell was seen at his best. He scored 51 goals in the five matches, and the fact that 23 of them were registered against a weak team like Queensland did not diminish the evidence of skill.
Johnnie Campbell, his brother, who for years was a high-flying freak and capable follower for South Fremantle, was also in the side, along with Gilbert Taylor, who linked up with West Perth after some seasons in the game in Victoria, and Bert Harrold, a long-kicking half-forward.
Opinions win always differ as to whether the 1924 side was the equal of that which won Western Australia's only carnival championship in 1921. It suffices, however, to say that the representation Western Australia had over the period covered by these carnivals was the most powerful in its history.
Victorian teams of that era were as solid as any that have represented their State. Their 1924 team included such out standing types as Paddy O'Brien (skipper), Mark Tandy, Alec Duncan, Len Wigraft, Lloyd Hagger, Tom Fitzmaurice, Goldie Collins, Vic Thorp, Colin Watson, Albert Chadwick, Roy Cazaly, Ernie Wilson and Norman Mclntosh, an ex-Western Australian.
Western Australia had the services of the late Phil Matson as coach and I did not hear him praise any individual performance so ecstatically as he did that of Watson against Western Australia in that match.
It was this great clash at Hobart that set the football relations of Western Australia and Victoria to a new alignment. An outcome was the decision to arrange for more regular meetings. The result was that a Western Australian team visited Melbourne in 1925, but the innovation met with a poor baptism as Victoria held sway from the beginning to the end of the game towin with a tally of 22.11 to 8.10. Clem Bahen, now hotel-keeping at Fremantle and for many years a star of Subiaco, was the champion of the losing side. The game was played under bad conditions, and it was generally felt that the performance of the Western Australians was not a true reflex of the standard of play in this State.
The 1926 return matches at Perth were very different affairs. Western Australia won both, but it was close going all the way. On the Saturday we kicked 9.5 to the Victorians 7.14: on the following Tuesday our tally was 11.10 to 10.8. The Saturday game has since been described by the Collingwood forward, Gordon Coventry, as the roughest in which he ever played. Staunch Owens gave a wonderful exhibition in the role of follower, and in a reorganised team in the subsequent game Jerry Sunderland was responsible for another good effort.
The fifth carnival in Melbourne in 1927 brought these rivals into opposition again, and another thrilling match resulted. Victoria won the deciding match by 11.10 to 10.12. This, too, was described as 'one of the hardest and fiercest games fought in the history of the code.' It bore many points of similarity to that staged at Hobart three years earlier, for there was not a wide margin between the teams at any stage. Baggott (Richmond), Todd and Baker (Geelong), Stockdale (Essendon), Warne-Smith (Melbourne), Duncan (Carlton), Syd Coventry (Collingwood'), and Chadwick (Melbourne) were accounted the best players for Victoria, while outstanding players for Western Australia included Owens, Fletcher, O'Meara, Western and Guhl (East Perth), Craig (West Perth), Sunderland (South Fremantle), Leonard and Smith (Subiaco), and McComish(Perth).
Victory in the rain
Since then Western Australia's only success against Victoria, was obtained in the second of the games played in 1929, when the interstate fixtures were one of the leading Centenary attractions. After failing at Melbourne in 1928, the Victorians gave a dazzling display of football to win the first match at Perth the following year—15.19 to 13.8, but they failed to effect a double. The following Tuesday the elements put good football out of the question, but in a stirring encounter Western Australia triumphed by three points—5.12 to 5.9.
The only games since played between the States were at the 1930 and 1933 carnivals at Adelaide and Sydney, respectively, the Victorians being successful by small margins on each occasion. Occasional easy victories have not served to lessen the rivalry of the Victorians and the representatives of our own State Favoring similar methods, with courage, ruggedness and skill as the determining factors, they have produced football of the kind that has done good to the national game. It was not surprising that the thousands who went to Perth Oval today should have been in a mood of eager expectancy. They had every reason to expect a spectacular and thrilling demonstration of the best features of the code.
Footnotes
Title: Football memories recalled: Epic duels between Western Australia and Victoria Author: Harry Potter Publisher: The Daily News (Perth, WA: 1882-1950) Date: Saturday 22 June 1935 Late City Edition, p.17 (Article Illustrated) Web: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article84177238
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